Yellowcake - Margo Lanagan [50]
He put both pieces in his pocket. You never know, he might find himself in the kind of place that had sticky tape. He came back down to Owen and Cobbla, who were sitting on the packs at the foot of the mound.
‘They all there?’ said Owen.
Sheegeh sat on his own pack, and handed Owen the open notebook. The page was a little messy with blood-smudges.
Owen read the name column aloud from top to bottom, slowly. Even for Michael, his voice didn’t shake; Sheegeh admired him greatly. It was almost like a proper funeral.
While he read, Cobbla was leaning in to see the page. When Owen had finished, Cobbla touched the other column with his little finger. ‘What’s these?’
‘Their head measurements. The circumference,’ said Owen.
‘Head measurements? That’s what he was doing up there all that time? Measuring their heads? What’s the point of—’
‘He measures. Their heads,’ said Owen loudly and soberly. ‘That’s. What he does,’ said Owen. ‘You want to go through their pockets, be my guest. Bring me any papers you find.’
Cobbla was already up the slope. ‘Head measurements!’ floated down to them as he bent to the first body.
Owen handed back Sheegeh’s notebook. ‘I thought I might look out one of those camps,’ he said, ‘seeing I’ve got no one to raid for me any more. The one close to us, by Pontoon Bridge, I’ve heard they will take you if you wait long enough outside, even though they say they are turning people away. And I can wait.’ He patted the pack underneath him, patted his own belly, sending out ripples.
Sheegeh gave a stiff little nod. He looked at the ground and then up at Owen’s round, harmless face and down again.
‘Hey, I’m not mad about this Cobbla,’ Owen said low. ‘Reckon you could come along with me and keep an eye on him?’
‘As if I could do anything, my size,’ Sheegeh said to his lap.
‘I could sit on him, and you could knock him out with—I don’t know, half a brick? A tin o’ beans?’
Sheegeh’s whole chest was full of sharp hardnesses. He didn’t want to disappoint Owen.
‘What? You’ve another plan?’ Owen sounded amused. ‘Skip off to Paree? Open a little beestro?’
‘Go up to Grandview,’ said Sheegeh.
Owen stopped chuckling. ‘Grandview? There’s no pickings up there any more—you will starve once you’re through your tins, if you’re not robbed of them on the way.’
‘I want to find that dog man, that you told us about,’ Sheegeh apologised. ‘See what he’s up to.’
Owen stared at him and blinked.
‘Hoo-hoo!’ Cobbla stood over Michael’s body, waving a banded roll of currency.
‘He might not even be there any more,’ said Owen. ‘That dog man. It was a while ago I heard that.’
Sheegeh shrugged. ‘I’ll see if he is. If he’s not, I’ll come back down and try a camp like you.’ He stood up.
Owen watched him unfasten the pack. ‘Pontoon Bridge is good. I hear they’ve a school there, even, for your-age kids.’
Sheegeh took out a good blanket and put it on Cobbla’s pack. He took out another and gave it to Owen, who took it, looking stricken, and hugged it. ‘You be careful going across town,’ he said. ‘Go now, go early. And hide when things start to wake up.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Sheegeh tied up the pack and shouldered it and shook Owen’s hand. His face was cold and tight with the drying tears, his eyelashes clumped with them.
He had to watch his feet as he walked away, stepping over the scattered concrete chunks and brick bits.
‘Keep up with your triangles, eh,’ said Owen.
Sheegeh turned and smiled to show he’d heard. From here Cobbla seemed to float