Fiery Possession (9 page)

In the few moments it took for her to become accustomed to the darkness, the pair had disappeared. Hurrying first in one direction, then the other, she found herself near the carriages. Instinctively she went over to their buggy and picked up Ian's rifle.

A short, sharp cry rent the air and she charged in its direction.

“Amy!” Fear raised her voice. “Amy!”

Another scream came from near the stables, and Jo ran. The night was not pitch black because of the star-filled sky and filtered light thrown out by the lanterns strung out along the wall of the barn. Horror temporarily froze her feet to the ground as she saw Amy desperately struggling with that monster Tim Campton.

With strength dredged from God alone knew where, she screamed out. “Let her go.”

Tim dragged Amy towards the stables. Jo rushed at him, hitting his back with the butt of Ian’s rifle.

“Bitch,” he snarled, letting Amy go as he swung towards Jo in a maddened frenzy. One hand contacted with the side of her neck, the other hand grabbed the front of her gown and the sound of the material ripping mingled with Amy’s screams. She tried to wrench herself free, but fell to the ground.

Rising groggily, she saw Tim holding the rifle. He advanced towards her. He was going to shoot her. No sound came out of her paralyzed throat. Like a maddened beast he lunged forward, tripped over something, and in the split second it took before he hit the ground, a shot echoed on the still night air.

Luke arrived on the scene first, followed by Ian and the Kirkmans. Tim thrashed around in his death throes, blood spurting out everywhere. Ian helped her stand up. Someone threw a shawl or blanket about her shoulders. Luke knelt on the ground, cradling his dying brother's head, running his fingers across Tim’s forehead, brushing away a tendril of hair.

Tears were beyond Jo. Horror struck her dumb. Ian and Fiona tried to comfort her while the Kirkmans consoled Amy. The terrified girl’s hysterical screams became louder, reverberating through the darkness.

As Ian helped her away, Luke raised his head. His eyes stared straight into hers. He did not speak. The sheer savagery of his expression registered with her even though she was on the verge of collapse.

The next few minutes turned into a terrifying nightmare. The screaming, the blood, she had never known such horror. Because of her a young man had died. “It was my fault,” she cried in a voice husky with anguish.

“He tripped over and the gun accidentally went off,” a man said.

“He attacked young Amy Kirkman. It wasn't your fault. No one can blame you,” a different man consoled, as he handed her a flask of brandy. The liquid scalded going down her throat, but it brought the warmth back to her trembling limbs. The top of her gown hung loosely, ripped from shoulder to waist and she clutched at the shawl to keep herself covered. In a detached kind of way she watched a police constable, who had been at the dance, talking to the men who had stuck up for her. What a shocking end to what had been an enjoyable occasion.

Even in her distress, she could sympathize with Amy, not yet sixteen and terrified by Tim Campton's attack.

“Don't blame yourself.” Flora patted her shoulder. “That horrid man didn’t deserve to live. He nearly killed our girl, would have if you hadn't come along. If it’s any comfort think on it this way. The Lord took his life, but gave Amy back hers. She had red marks around her throat from his fingers. He would have strangled her. No one will blame you for such a tragic accident.”

“Of course,” Fiona soothed, handing her a cup of tea. “Ian's speaking with the police. Lucky they were here to see what happened.”

“Luke Campton blames me because I got the rifle. I'll never forget the hatred in his eyes.”  Tears poured down her cheeks.

When Ian came back from speaking with the police, they prepared to leave, declining the Kirkmans' pleas for Jo to stay with them for a time. She scarcely remembered the ride home, or Fiona helping her into bed.

***

For two days, Jo existed in a nightmare world, reliving over and over again the fatal accident. On the third day, she somehow managed to get up and dress. The face staring back at her in the mirror as she attended to her hair looked white and gaunt, the skin under her eyes smudged with black. For the sake of Ian and Fiona, she tried to pull herself together.

“Everything will turn out all right.  No one blames you.” Fiona ladled out the soup. “You have to eat. Starving yourself won’t undo what’s happened. It was a terrible, tragic accident.”

One person blamed her.

She forced the food into her mouth, even though she nearly gagged on every mouthful. If she never ate again it would be too soon.

***

A few days after the dance, Jo watched in surprise as Granny Kirkman drove into the yard.

“Good morning, Granny, what are you doing here? Please come inside.”

“I prefer to sit outside.” she helped the old lady down. “I want to talk to you without anyone else hearing.”

After Granny settled herself in a chair, she lit her pipe and took a couple of pulls on it. “You saved Amy from a fate worse than death. I wanted to see you on your own, so you'll know how much you did for my Will and his family. Rape is ugly, something you never forget.”  Eyes, faded with the years, burned with remembered bitterness. “I don't think of this now, want to forget it, but the attack on poor Amy brought it all back to me.” She took another savage pull on her pipe and one of her wizened, arthritic hands balled into a fist.

“The journey out to Australia was hellish, jammed into a ship carrying some of the vilest harlots from the docks of England. All night drunken sailors came down and selected their women. Course officers got first choice, sailors took the leftovers.”

“Oh, Granny.”  She touched the old lady’s hand and her skin felt dry as parchment. “I understand what you're trying to say, you don't have to tell me any more.”

“I'm too old to worry about such things now. I'll never lose my hatred of what happened, but old age makes it easier to talk about. Even Will doesn't know the full story.”

“I was a pretty blonde like Amy. My father died of fever, leaving my mother a widow with seven children. Being the oldest, I stole a loaf of bread because we were starving. Seven years transportation they gave me. Anyway, a young officer claimed me. Just as well for me he turned out to be only half a man and not capable of doing anything with a woman.” She cackled. “Of course, he didn’t want the others to find out, so thank heavens he picked me. I did nothing more than warm his bed and see to his clothes. He made sure I got reasonable food, that's how I survived the journey. Half the convicts died below decks.”

She started rambling. “Will is my only child, but before that, I got assigned to a man.  You couldn't call him a man, more like an animal. The aborigines speared him in the end, as he’d tampered with their women too. He got male convicts assigned to him to work on the property, a crueler man you never saw, gave one fellow two hundred lashes because he broke the handle on an axe. I've seen men with flesh hanging off their backs in strips.”

“Granny, please.” Jo shivered.

“Well, I did. Where was I?  Ah yes. He got women convicts to share his bed. One wasn't enough, always two, three, more if he could get them. He'd take turns with them all in the one night, like a rutting bull, he never got tired.”  She spat. “Filthy pig. If you didn't give into him, he'd tie you to the bed with your legs...”

“Granny!”

“All right, you can guess what I mean. We used to have to watch, listen to his grunts and groans, and the screams sometimes if the girls were virgins. He made us stay there, knowing we would have to go through the same things.”

“Did you fight him?  I mean…”

“No, I lay there and took it, hoping some day I'd get the chance to kill him. On my first day there, another girl told me what would happen to anyone who fought him. He stripped them naked, absolutely naked, and paraded them in front of fifty or so convicts and several free men, then let them all have their way with her.”

“How dreadful, wasn't there anything you could do?”

“No, against regulations to do what he did, but when you're forty miles from the nearest town, there ain't no laws. There must have been something wrong with him. He never got any woman with child, which made him even worse.”

“After serving my time, I left a free woman so the government said, but who could forget five years of that. I didn’t get married until I turned forty. Arthur was a most understanding man. Didn't worry too much after I had Will, knew how I hated it after what I’d been through. I was too scared to go near a man for twenty years, that's what you saved Amy from.”

“Oh, Granny.”

The old lady knocked out her pipe and immediately refilled it.

“Thank you for coming over. I do feel a little better knowing I saved Amy from something so horrible. Will you be all right?  I could ride home with you.”

“I've driven horses for years, used to be harnessed to a cart in the early days. I saw men working in chains, pulling wagons like bullocks.”

She watched the old lady drive off. What a horrific story. To think a young girl had been forced to endure such terrible violations. And to think it still happened.

***

The weather became hotter, no rain fell and the creek turned into a trickle. They all knew why, although none of them voiced their suspicion. A worried Ian received word that if he wanted to go on the drive, he must leave within the next couple of days.

This news coming hard on the heels of Granny Kirkman’s visit brought Jo out of her depression. If she could not take over the running of the property for Ian, they would go under.  Even her sister-in-law’s friends would have to admit Fiona was incapable of doing anything of the sort.

***

Fiona sobbed uncontrollably and Jo had to put aside her own sadness to try and comfort her when Ian rode away to join the drovers. For a king’s ransom, she wouldn’t tell Fiona that it was more than likely he could be away for several months. In fact, if he didn’t get back in time to harvest their small crop of wheat, he had instructed her to seek help from Kirkmans.

“I miss him already,” white faced, Fiona blubbered between sniffs.

“Of course you do, but he'll be back soon,” she lied. Her sister-in-law could have passed for seventeen in her blue sprigged cotton gown, with a little white collar and matching cuffs. What an awesome responsibility taking on a helpless sister-in-law, a young child and a farm virtually on her own. Her shoulders slumped.

“You aren't frightened, are you, Jo?”

“Frightened?  Me? Of course not.”  Her spine stiffened. “I fear nothing or no one.”  No one?  A cold shiver ran up her spine. She forced a carefree laugh through suddenly dry lips.

“You're so brave.” Fiona clasped her hands together.

“Glad you think so. I might take a ride out along our eastern boundary. Ian mentioned seeing clouds of dust there yesterday afternoon, but he was too busy to investigate.”

She saddled the horse and rode off with a cheerful wave. The wind picked up, so she tightened the chinstrap on her hat and urged her mount into a gallop. She had missed this freedom while moping around the homestead.

The leaves on the gum trees sent out a strong scent of eucalyptus and the last dying blooms of the golden wattle drifted down on the wind. A few pink-breasted galahs and brightly colored parrots flew about amidst the scrub. At dusk, every tree and fence post would be covered with squawking bird life. The air hung heavy with perfume from the massed, creamy blossoms of the prickly box that covered the hillsides along the farthermost boundary of their property.

Strange, no cattle grazed in the paddocks. Hadn’t Ian mentioned moving them over this way?  Following the sagging boundary fence along, she gasped in shock on coming across a broken down section. “Why didn’t you maintain the fences properly?” she raged out loud at her absent, irresponsible brother. Someone had rustled all their cattle.

They only had a few sheep and pigs left now. I'll have to go hunting, rabbits are plentiful and parrot pie was supposed to be nice too. Fortunately, she was an expert shot as their father had instructed her and Ian together.

“You need to be able to protect yourself in this God forsaken colony,” he’d stated. An American with little love for this country, he tolerated it because he hoped to make his fortune on the gold fields. This never happened. With a delicate wife and two children to support he could never raise the required capital to pay their fares back home.

The youngest of three sons, Matthew Saunders had chosen a military career, graduating from West Point near the top of his class. After fighting in some Mexican war he became disillusioned and went to California searching for gold. When he didn’t find it, he journeyed to Australia, hoping to dig up a fortune in Ballarat. Like thousands of others, his dream ended in bitter disappointment.

She sighed on recalling the last few years of his life. Things had been tough for them until he found a teaching position in a prestigious private school. Ian’s biological father had died when he was quite young, and within three years of his death, their mother had married Matthew and Jo had been born. Four years ago, their mother had died of pneumonia, and their father followed his beloved wife to the grave a couple of years later.