The climb, for the highly intoxicated, was already proving to be an obstacle.Watching drunken stockmen slip and slide like toddlers off the back of the ute, plopping onto the ground with a thud, had Porter cringing as they swallowed the dust.
But then came the real challenge.
Standing on the roof of the ute while it drove in slow circles in the dusty paddock, that made up the pub’s car park.
There used to be a building here once, the Unofficial Elsie Creek Inn they’d called it.A place where the stockmen would stay the night and keep out of trouble.But a Christmas cyclone destroyed it, making the car park a makeshift stockmen’s camp for their assorted utes, horse floats and trailers, where they’d roll out their swags, while their stockhorses were kept in the nearby fenced paddock.
Tonight, the car park was fairly empty.Tomorrow, it’d be full for the livestock auction, which meant cocky cowboys were coming in from everywhere.
Oh, the joy.
‘Oomph.’The bearded ringer spilled off the roof, chest heavy, into the dirt with a thud.‘Will ya get a gander at that?I’ve still got some bloody beer left.’
The half dozen onlookers cheered, as the ute continued to do a lazy circle in the car park with the dust barely rising in its wake.Only two men remained on the roof.
‘Hold my beer, Blu.’The larrikin with the woolly moustache, mullet, and bashed hat, grinned like a fool.He spat into his palms, then attempted to do a handstand on the roof of the moving vehicle.
‘Crikey, you’re doin’ it, Showbag.For once you ain’t full of—’ Blu, laughing so hard, lost his balance and face planted himself onto the bonnet of the ute.
Oof!That was gonna leave a dent.
But what made it worse was the driver kept rolling.
That left Porter with two options: let the genius on the roof fall and crack his skull, or let the one on the bonnet slide off so the driver could mow him down like a B-grade horror flick in slow motion to become roadkill.It was real pick-your-own-adventure kind of stuff meets Mad Max in farmer’s flannel.
Porter rubbed his face in frustration.‘I don’t get paid enough for this.’
For the sake of public safety, and what little brain cells were left in the stockmen, Porter leaned into his ute and flicked on the police lights and siren.
The blast was short and sharp.
Enough to wake the dead.
Or get a drunk driver’s attention.
The driver in the crusty ute slammed on the brakes, forcing both his passengers to fall hard into the dirt.
‘You idiots do realise we have seatbelt laws, yeah?’Porter hooked his thumbs into his police utility belt.
They just grinned at him like schoolboys caught skipping classes.
‘You two okay?’
‘We’re good, Policeman Porter.’Blu and his mate with the dusty mullet waved their empty beer glasses in the air.
‘You’re parking up for the night, aren’t you, Wingnut?’Porter’s warning tone was hopefully enough for the driver to get the message.‘Don’t make me do a breath test on you.’
The handbrake cranked back, and the engine was soon silenced, with the driver holding up his keys.‘All good, officer.Reckon it’s time for some shut-eye anyways.We’ve gotta big day tomorrow.’
‘Uh-huh.’They looked like ringers at a B&S car park afterparty—sweaty, sugar-wired, and utterly useless—trying to sort their swags in the dark.
Then Porter spotted Constable Amara Montrose struggling to get her boss, Finn Wilde, into his vehicle, a beefed-up troopy.
‘Here.Allow me.’Finn reeked of beer and bourbon, and was heavy.
‘Thanks.’Amara opened the passenger’s door.‘You on night shift?’
‘Only until eleven, once this lot goes home.’Porter nodded at the scattering crew of yahoos, doing the right thing of unrolling their swags, to sleep it off.
