Ironbark (24 page)

Fear made him vomit. Then he ran and cowered behind the tool-shed. He tried to block his ears against the sound of Will's high-pitched screams but his mind was full of memories of bloodied backs and torn flesh. The sudden unnatural silence that followed was worse than the cries of agony. Was Will unconscious or dead?

Daniel crouched, watching for a sign that the men had dispersed to their assigned labours so that he could slink away to his own work. But then the overseer rode towards him, holding the reins of a second horse. Daniel jumped to his feet when he saw what the packhorse carried. Will's bloodied body was slung across its back, his arms and legs dangling. The overseer gestured to the body as if flaunting a trophy.

‘Thought I'd find you here. Sorry you missed young Martens's performance. I've brought you what's left of him.' He thoughtfully stroked his beard. ‘I much doubt this one will make old bones. Do you?'

Without waiting for an answer the overseer pushed Will's body off the horse so that it fell at Daniel's feet. The man's tone was confidential. ‘How clever of
you
, Daniel Browne, to ditch One Eye and return home to Gideon Park that night.'

A muffled groan escaped Will's lips but Daniel was unable to move, held by the amused expression in the overseer's eyes. He felt himself blanch.
My God, he knew all the time. So why didn't he have
me
flogged?

The overseer rode off leaving Daniel to drag Will's body into a cabin to be tended by an old man too infirm to work. Hurrying to his assigned work Daniel felt like a human draughthorse as he worked the plough. He must avoid Will at all cost. The boy attracted his admiration and contempt in equal parts. Daniel was haunted by his own cowardice when he bailed up Saranna and was shamed by Will's chivalrous protection of her.

Although Daniel had relived that moment many times, he was uncertain how to interpret the horror in Saranna's eyes. Was it simply due to the threat of losing her silly brooch? Or had she recognised him? Was this the reason she had avoided coming to marry him and set him free?

The following day as Daniel prepared the paddock for crop planting, he was angered by Will's approach. Despite being deathly pale and unable to manage his usual jaunty gait, the lad's manner was still surprisingly cocky.

‘I've been invited to give you a hand, mate.'

Daniel steeled himself against pity. ‘My unlucky day. Pile up the stones ready to build a drystone wall. And do me a favour. Spare me your escape plans. You'll end up in Norfolk Island. I plan to survive.'

Will's shrug caused him to wince with pain. ‘Suit yourself. Stick with your art and good luck to you. I'll be famous myself one day. The gentlemen of the press have already given me a title – Jabber Jabber.'

‘That fits. You can't keep your mouth shut for two minutes.' Daniel hid his surprise at Will's revelation. He'd heard rumours that the newspapers were full of stories about an unidentified gentlemanly bushranger they called Jabber Jabber, but Daniel hadn't suspected this was Will.

He turned coldly to Will. ‘Now get to it. I don't give a damn how painful your stripes are. We finish this work by sundown or else!'

As usual Will had the last word. Not five minutes passed before he stopped for a break.

‘Did you hear what happened to that coach we bailed up? Their horses bolted over Blackman's Leap. One of those girls was killed.'

Daniel's hands went cold despite the heat. ‘What was her name?'

Will was startled by the urgency of the question. ‘I don't know. They said she was a Gypsy. What difference does it make? It's a tragedy for any lovely girl to die young. Their driver was badly smashed up – he's still in hospital. The other girl is teaching school somewhere.'

Daniel turned to hide his relief. For a moment he'd feared his lifeline had been cut off. Now he had proof Saranna was alive. That meant only one thing to him. The hope of freedom.

• • •

Despite his fatigue and hunger, Daniel had worked relentlessly over the past weeks to avoid being flogged, knowing the Devil Himself was on the warpath. Just hours before Will Martens was due to receive another set of stripes, he had bolted again, causing the overseer to lose face over Will's audacious string of escapes. Jabber Jabber was once again at large.

For Daniel art was his secret salvation. Sunday afternoons like this one were his oasis in the week.

Hidden behind the toolshed Daniel was totally absorbed in capturing the essence of a man's character on paper. A horse's whinny startled him back to reality.

The Devil Himself was observing him from the saddle. He stroked his glossy black beard then beckoned him. ‘Give over.'

Daniel wanted to bolt. ‘Sir, I meant no harm.'

The sensual mouth curled at the corners in grudging approval. ‘Not a bad likeness. But why me? No lusty wench willing to strip for you?'

‘I prefer drawing men. Strong faces are a greater challenge than soft ones.'

‘So you fancy challenges, eh?'

Daniel waited in anxious silence, unsure of the rules of the new game being played.

‘Finish it. Drop it in to my wife. If it's any good I'll supply you with art materials.'

Daniel stammered his thanks and watched the Devil Himself ride away, sensing that a door had been opened to his future. His real goal was Julian Jonstone, who was said to be a patron of the arts and rumoured to be returning early in the new year.

• • •

A week later Daniel arrived at the whitewashed cottage. He saw his reflection in the window – gaunt with dark circles around his eyes. Nothing mattered but this crucial test. He must not fail.

The wife of the Devil Himself opened the door. He suspected she was younger than the age lines around her mouth suggested. Her whole appearance was faded, like washing bleached by the sun. She was married to the man who held Daniel's fate in his hands.

Daniel bowed. ‘Ma'am? Your husband said to bring this portrait to you when I'd finished it.'

She studied it, expressionless. ‘He's gone to Sydney Town to fetch assigned men.'

Daniel felt an acute sense of disappointment. He would never be given the art paper.

The Devil's wife gestured him to a bench. ‘No doubt tea is welcome, lad.'

He gasped when she returned with a tray. Bread so freshly baked the butter melted turning it gold. A bowl of raspberry jam lay beside the teapot. And a slice of Christmas cake. Luxury beyond belief.

‘Sunday,' she said. ‘Peace be with thee.'

‘You're most kind, Ma'am.' Daniel was unable to conceal his hunger. As he bit into the bread and jam his eyes closed with pleasure.

‘Husband told me to give you this.' She gave him a look he could not read as she handed him a roll of paper and pencils.

Daniel's hand stroked the art paper. ‘Would he like me to draw you?'

‘You'd best choose what will put you in good stead with the master. His little tot Victoria would make a pretty picture. Good luck, Daniel Browne.'

She turned in the doorway. ‘You don't deserve to be here, lad.'

Surprised, Daniel avoided the pity in her eyes.
Easy for her to say. She came free.

• • •

During the days after Christmas Daniel looked for some sign that the Devil Himself approved his portrait. He waited in vain but Daniel sensed that the balance between them had subtly altered.

Was it his imagination that when the overseer observed him from a distance his expression was now guarded. Why? Did he feel that Daniel had challenged his control because he had learned to use art to retreat from his cruelty?

The sound of the triangle called witnesses to another flogging. Roped to a tree was a twelve-year-old boy who had been assigned at Gideon Park barely two weeks ago. The older men hooted in derision. Even before the first stroke of the lash slashed his back the terrified boy had urine running down his legs.

The overseer paid little attention to the boy but watched Daniel intently. Why?

It made Daniel nervous but he remained stony-faced as he heard the sentence called out. The boy had been caught stealing from the overseer's wife and was given twenty stripes. Daniel remained unmoved by the lad's suffering, even when he was finally cut down, blubbering for his mother. Each time Daniel witnessed another prisoner's degradation, he felt an overriding emotion. Gratitude – that Our Lady had spared
him
.

As Daniel mumbled a prayer of thanks under his breath, the Devil Himself halted his prancing horse in front of him. ‘What do you think of that? Twenty lashes for stealing art paper from my wife. A fitting enough punishment, eh, Daniel?'

Now Daniel fully understood the rules of the new cat and mouse game. The Devil Himself enjoyed watching an innocent boy flogged for ‘stealing' the paper his wife had given to Daniel on her husband's own instructions.

‘Thou shalt not steal,' the overseer said softly.

Daniel hung his head, overwhelmed by shame. His silence branded him the coward the Devil Himself had always known him to be.

‘This was found in a bag of Her Majesty's mail dumped by a bushranger in the scrub.'

He tossed the letter at Daniel's feet then rode off whistling a marching tune.

Daniel saw the letter had been torn open and was ringed by red wine stains. He did not doubt the bastard had read it. The script was fine copperplate, dated months earlier.

My beloved Daniel,

I write in haste, travelling by coach to Ironbark where I am to teach school. I shall move heaven and earth to come to you. I send you undying love.

Your own Saranna

Daniel crumpled the letter and vented his rage at his missing fiancée.

Ironbark! She had travelled eighteen thousand miles to Sydney Town to join him. Why in hell hadn't she covered the last miles from Ironbark to Gideon Park? So much for her undying love!

He had won Saranna's heart without even trying. Her silence must mean she
had
recognised him. No point in sending her a letter.

I must find some way to confront her face to face in Ironbark. Marriage to a mouse is a small price to pay for my freedom.

In the wooden hospital in Goulburn Jake Andersen lay flat on his back staring at the flypaper stuck to the ceiling liberally speckled with dead flies. The ward's new dividing wall smelled of freshly sawn timber and antiseptic permeated everything, including the hospital food.

The place had been built as a convict hospital in 1834 but whenever any of its thirty beds were empty they accepted free men as patients. Jake knew he was lucky to gain a bed. His leg had not been so lucky. Dr O'Flaherty had been so drunk when he set the leg it had needed to be re-broken and re-set. Jake swore at the plaster cast that imprisoned him, then slapped at a blowfly.

He was so bored he would have welcomed a chat with the Devil Himself. He brightened when a nurse told him he had a visitor.

Jake dragged himself upright, expecting to see Mac Mackie. He was the only person who knew where Jake was. But the figure walking towards him was a total stranger.

Stocky and bearded, the man carried a top hat under one arm and his dark dress coat, vest and contrasting trousers were distinctly formal.

Jake was suspicious.
That's the kind of garb worn by the manager of the bloody Bank of New South Wales or by some bloke in his coffin.

The man made a polite bow and introduced himself as Joseph Bloom of Ironbark. Jake decided all it needed was for his heels to click together and he'd be a dead ringer for some Prussian military officer. ‘I've heard of you. A lawyer from England, right? You're Hobson's new partner.'

‘If by new you mean for two years, that is correct. It is also true I'm a lawyer but I have not yet practised in the colony. Allow me to explain.
I come periodically to Goulburn to celebrate Shabbat with my co-religionists. So what brings me to the hospital to call on you, Mr Andersen?'

‘Jesus. Rolly Brothers hired you to sue me! Look, I didn't
intend
to wreck their bloody coach. Isn't it enough they sacked me? What do they want? Blood?'

‘Calm yourself, Mr Andersen. This is not the reason.'

‘So what kind of strife am I in now?'

‘Your prolonged hospitalisation is causing concern to a friend. A lady.'

‘Which one?' Jake asked quickly.

Joseph Bloom hid a smile. ‘Before my departure from Ironbark I received this letter with a request to visit you.'

Jake hated to be caught reading at a snail's pace in front of strangers. ‘My eyes ain't too good today. Would you mind reading it to me?'

Joseph Bloom opened the letter and cleared his throat. ‘Jakob Andersen is in hospital in Goulburn. I am worried about his injuries. I was a passenger on his coach. If you can visit him please tell him Saranna Plews wants to know if he needs any help.'

Jake was puzzled. Saranna Plews? Hadn't she died the night of the accident? His memories of that night were full of holes. It was like trying to play poker with a pack of cards when the queens and aces were missing.

Joseph Bloom explained that Miss Plews was Ironbark's respected schoolteacher. When he asked Jake if there was anything he could do to assist him, Jake grabbed the opportunity.

‘Yeah. If you should come across my missing wife and little girl.'

The lawyer listened solemnly as Jake relayed his usual description. The words seemed to have faded with constant use but Jake looked the lawyer straight in the eye to deliver the rider, ‘I'm no wife-beater if that's what you're thinking.'

‘I would not agree to hand over any wife to her husband if I believed
that to be the case. So, Mr Andersen, I am at your service if it is ever possible for me to assist you.'

After Joseph Bloom left, Jake was alone again, trapped with his thoughts. This time they didn't revolve around Jenny. He was intrigued by the unexpected concern shown by the genteel Pommy girl who had looked down her nose at him. He could hardly expect any of his passengers to track him down after all the trouble he had caused them. How very odd that it was Saranna Plews. He wondered what had become of the mysterious Widow Smith. She had claimed to be an actress who was playing a Gypsy but Jake didn't doubt she was the genuine article on the run from a bloke in England.