the way he’d looked at me. I grabbed my car keys and asked him if he’d look after the place for an hour while I went home. He just nodded and his mates started whining like a flock of sheep kept from the grass. I don’t even know what I was thinking. But I knew it was the day that church met in the old schoolhouse. I hadn’t been for a long time, but I thought I might drop in and tell them a new story. Tell them something that might be worth believing. When I got there, I pushed through the door, and they stopped in the middle of a song. They looked almost as shocked and outraged to see me as I was to actually be in there again. The pastor came towards me as if he was going to throw me out, but, as he got closer, he just stopped and stared, then got out of my way. I knew what I was doing. I walked up to the lectern, and I took in all those folk I had once known. Mainly old folk now. I started to tell them the story of that morning. The story of meeting the man who said he was the Messiah. When I pulled back into the driveway of the ‘The Old Hell’, there was a string of cars following me. Dust flew up as the drivers parked and cautiously got out of their utes and trucks and cars. Jesus came out of the roadhouse and his mates followed him. It was like the start of a gunfight in an old movie, both sides checking each other out. But there was no fight. He shook hands and introduced himself, then led them all round the back to where the well was. Where the windmill was chained up. He went to the garage and got bolt cutters and broke the chain. The blades started to turn again as a breeze blew in, and that great bloody Cockatoo sat on the tail vane and spread his wings to the sun. Jesus sat on the edge of the old well and started to talk to the mob from town. Telling them stories and answering their questions. By the time the first truck of the day rolled in for diesel, they’d already invited him and his mates to stay in town for a few days. Before he left, he walked over to me and reached out his hand for mine. He placed a Cockatoo feather in my hand. Looked at me. Smiled. I told 64
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