One Sunday (4 page)

Just another one-pub country town, Molliston was one of those accidental towns with nothing to distinguish it from every other one-pub country town in Victoria, apart from the fact that most of it was built in a circle around a massive red gum tree standing near the top of a slope that wasn't quite a hill. That tree would have been old when Captain Cook was still in short pants. There was no good reason why it remained, other than its size: it was too large to fell when the stone axe made way for steel in Australia, although a lot of smaller trees had been taken down to make way for a fifty mile track between Willama and the Merton gold fields.

They'd come on foot for that gold, come pushing wheelbarrows, come on horseback and in covered wagons, making camp for the night at the halfway point, beneath that old gum tree. Friendships and partnerships had been forged there, tales of gold strikes told around camp fires. One chap picked up a nugget the size of his fist while washing his face in Merton Creek. A barefoot kid stubbed his toe on a rock, and when he looked down to curse that rock, there it was, a lump of gold as big as his foot.

They'd passed by that tree in their hundreds, erecting a tent and bark hut city twenty-five miles east, alongside Merton Creek. There'd been gold for the taking at those diggings. She'd be bigger than Ballarat, the newspapers of the time reported.

That gold had to be brought out, the diggers had to eat. Bullock teams bringing supplies across from Willama turned that fifty-mile track into a bog during the wet, so they cut down a few more trees and widened the bog. Within two years of that first gold strike, a town sprang up and gold-rich Merton was marked on every map. The road makers came then. They turned that fifty mile bog into a road fit for the passenger coaches, which had already been providing a daily service between Bourke Street, Melbourne, and Willama. A hard-driven coach horse could do twenty-odd miles before needing a rest, and those coaches, having no time to wait around while the horses rested, required fresh teams every twenty miles. All along the coach routes, small hostelries were established.

That hill and the old gum tree had always been the halfway point between Willama and Merton. To the east of that tree, a mile or so nearer to Merton, the land levelled out before rising again. It looked like old England in the spring when a small stream, fed by the runoff from the hill, trickled through fields of grass taller than a man's waist. That's where the coach company built their hostelry.

George Dolan and his family, cleanskins from England, were given the job of running the place. They'd been there a month before learning they had neighbours, old Molly and her half-wild daughters who lived in a bark hut on the north side of the river.

A lot of folk were on the move back then, going north and south. Murphy got no further than the river, where he built a punt to ferry travellers across. Croft took up land west of the punt, Kennedy acquired land opposite Dolan's hostelry – and later acquired Molly's oldest daughter. She was no prize, but women were hard to come by.

As with many of Australia's gold towns, Merton was just a flash in the pan, and when gold stopped flashing in those pans regularly, diggers moved on and that coach service followed them. The hostelry would have fallen to rack and ruin if Dolan and his family hadn't been cider folk. They'd ringed that property with apple trees, and now settled down to the production of cider.

There was no town planner for the little settlement on that hill that became Molliston. Like the overgrown gum tree, a seed had taken root and found the right conditions to grow. A disillusioned digger set up a bakery to the north of that tree, a migrating blacksmith built his hut east of it, taking advantage of the tree's afternoon shade. Other businesses came then, each new builder remaining close to that tree, but having the simple common sense to leave space enough between his roof and those brittle branches.

During the drought of the eighteen-nineties, that quiet little settlement was swamped by a wave of thirsting humanity. Merton Creek had run dry. A man with gold fever might be able to live a long time on dreams, but he couldn't live a day without water. They'd come in by the dozen, come in on foot, on horseback, in carts. They'd come in by the hundreds, and not one made it past the hostelry. Rowdy times those, brawling times, men, women and children quenching their thirst on Dolan's apple cider, guaranteed to rot the brain. And thus lawmen came to the settlement, unwanted and unbidden, and the law had to be housed in a hurry.

It so happened that a few farsighted coots with gold dust in their eyes had built fine houses in Merton's proposed city square. No longer required there, they trisected one, jacked it onto log skids, hitched the three bits of that building to three bullock teams, and dragged it twenty-five miles over hill and dale. By the time they dragged it up that last long slope, the bullocks were smelling water, so the bullockies found a narrow gap beside Willama Road and dumped their load, with that tree right up the veranda's nose.

Someone reconnected those three bits of house, but the most that could be said for the Molliston police station was that from the front it looked too good to be a police station. It had a frosted glass pattern on the parlour window, and frosted glass in the top quarters of its twin front doors. The veranda, with its fancy shaped posts and scrolled woodwork, stuck out into Molliston's town circle like proud flesh, a low branch of that gum tree hobnobbing with its corrugated iron roof.

At four-forty on that Sunday morning, a bike rider dismounted, dropped his bike and in one movement was on that veranda, hammering at Tom Thompson's office door.

Tom heard that hammering and he didn't want to wake up and hear it so he took it into his dream. It was young Ronnie, in uniform. In his dream, he reached for his oldest boy, then he saw he had no face, no arms, and in his sleep Tom cried out his son's name.

That woke him, head pounding, heart racing. That bloody dream. God only knew how many times he'd dreamed it. It was always Ronnie at that door, never young Johnny; perhaps Tom's subconscious had accepted his youngest boy's death. All of those dreams started out the same, always that same knocking at the door, and him running, knowing it was his boy come home.

He rose from his pillow, shaking his head, trying to rid it of that dream. The knocking continued. Some bugger wanting him, and he'd only just got to sleep. He stood, grabbed for his trousers, stepping into them in the dark passage. He found his way to the knocking coming from the police station office door. He turned the key and peered out into the gloom, hoping he was awake and not dreaming he was awake, praying Ronnie wouldn't be standing there.

For an instant he could have sworn it was him. There was a reflex reaching out of his hand, then he recognised his milkman, young Kurt Reichenberg. And what the hell did he think he was doing, waking people up at this time of day?

‘It's Rachael Squire,' Kurt said. ‘She's hurt. She's on the road in front of our place.'

Tom's heart lurching as two fast beats tripped over each other, he stepped out onto the veranda. ‘Dave Kennedy's bride? Where?'

‘Near our gate. I've told the doctor.' And he was gone, riding off down hill.

Old Joe Reichenberg's property shared a fence with Dolan's hotel, over a mile east. Tom yawned, closed the door and felt his way back to the kitchen, where he opened the stove's firebox and poked a few sheets of newspaper in, needing its light, not its heat.

Not often did he curse Molliston's lack of electricity, but he cursed that web of wires now. All across Victoria they were weaving their night-time magic, lighting Willama, barely twenty-five miles northwest, but they still hadn't sidetracked those wires to Molliston. Much had been promised these last years and much had been delivered, but not electricity.

A time of great progress, the twenties, a time of consigning that bloody war to the past and getting on with it. A lot of land had been opened up in the Soldier Settlement Scheme – many of those returned boys had no trade to return to, so the government offered them blocks of land and equipment to develop that land. Some made a success of it.

Willama was the service centre for a large area. They had a butter factory, a cannery, a big abattoir and a small clothing factory; they had doctors, dentists, a well-equipped hospital. Willama was growing in population daily while Molliston stagnated, though the Johnsons, Murphys and O'Briens, all good Catholics, were doing their best for the town. Molliston could consider itself lucky to have the telephone, thanks to Nicholas Squire, the town toff, who knew folk in high places and who had stamped his handmade boots hard enough in those high places to get those wires brought to town.

Tom dressed in the kitchen, in the clothing he'd shed too few hours ago. He pulled on a collarless shirt, slipped his arms into his vest – not for warmth but for the watch he kept in its pocket. He hated not knowing the time.

He poked a few sticks into the stove before pulling on his socks. Forcing two large lumps of wood in, he felt the weight of his kettle. It was full enough. He closed the flue up tight, hoping there were enough embers in there to catch onto that wood; he pulled on his boots, and headed for his front door, lifting his lightweight helmet from the peg in the vestibule as he walked by.

Milk billy on his doorstep, pennies on its lid – he stepped over it; one foot on a cane chair, he was tying his bootlaces when he saw Rob Hunter ride out to the road.

‘Hang on, Rob,' he called. He checked the tyre pressure on his bike, which was propped for the night against his wall, then walked it across to where Rob waited. ‘What's happened to her? Do you know any more than me?'

‘Young Reichenberg said he was on his way to work and he found her on the side of the road. Said he couldn't wake her – that her head was bleeding.'

‘Sounds like a road accident. I heard the widow Dolan racing around last night. She's probably hit her.'

‘Did you forget your bike clips, Robbie?' a voice called from the hospital veranda.

‘I'm wearing them.'

Tom had a bad habit of misplacing bike clips and mincing his trouser cuffs in the chain and no one to remind him. He tucked those cuffs into his socks, mounted his bike and the men pushed off downhill.

Only a bike rider or a winded nag would call that slow incline a hill. It was a slope, though the length of that slope made it a long hard push back into town. There wasn't a lot to see from Merton Road once the shops and school were left behind. Hay's property on the left, Larkin's on the right, and not much of a road in between. Carved by the thousands in their quest for gold, reclaimed by nature, Merton Road was now a dusty goat track leading to a crumbling ghost town.

A road gang had been through six months back. They'd dropped a bit of gravel down this way and put in a culvert where Merton Road intersected with a bush track known as Kennedy's Road, with just a couple of posts to warn folk of that culvert, then they'd called it good enough. It was far from good enough. Old ruts forged by the iron wheels of yesteryear were deep, and recent wind storms hadn't helped any. Most of the gravel dumped on that road had now moved off to the sides.

They crossed over the hump of that culvert and, a hundred yards on, sighted Kurt Reichenberg standing guard over a figure. Tom dismounted and leaned his bike against a clump of stunted wattle. Rob, fifteen years his senior and not so agile, placed one foot down and took his time. He retrieved his bag from the wire basket, his lantern from the handlebars, then allowed his bike to fall. The lantern held low, they stood looking down at the girl: blood staining the side of her mouth, blood around her nose, no obvious sign of laceration.

‘Shite,' Rob said. ‘Hang on to the light for me, Tom.' And he was down on one knee, his fingers searching for a pulse. ‘Hold it over her. Tilt it, and get rid of that shadow. ‘Now hold it there.' He lifted her head, his fingers doing more examining than his eyes, then he placed her head gently down. ‘Shite,' he said. ‘Shite, shite, and more of it. What's gone wrong with this bloody town tonight?'

‘I can carry her up to the hospital, Doctor Hunter. She's no weight.'

‘The ambulance is on its way. I reckon she looks comfortable enough where she is, lad.'

More light creeping out of the east now, Tom could see blood on Kurt's shirt, blood on his hand, which he was rubbing against the legs of his trousers.

‘You've got a lot of her blood on you, Kurt,' Tom said.

‘I tried to lift her, before I saw she was injured.'

‘You didn't see what happened to her?'

Kurt shook his head, turned away.

‘She's taken some sort of blow to the base of the skull, by the looks of it. That's all I can find,' Rob said.

‘Hit by a car?'

‘Not likely. Something would be broken. There'd be skin off somewhere. There's hardly a mark on her.' Rob continued his examination, lifting her sleeves, looking at her arms, her legs. ‘I can't see anything in this light. You didn't straighten her up at all, lad? Didn't pull her skirt down?'

‘She's . . . as I found her.'

‘She's been carried here, and not long ago.' Rob gained his feet with difficulty and turned to the sound of horse's hooves and creaking harness. ‘Someone's down there.'

‘Mr Mason. He's camped down past the hotel with his herd,' Kurt said.

‘He won't find much for them to eat out there.'

Plenty of feed on old Joe Reichenberg's property. His frontage wasn't great, but the land went well back. It looked like a small piece of Germany, that property, its mudbrick house nestling in the shade of European trees, the outbuildings complementing the picture. Tom allowed his eyes to rest there while his mind pondered the likelihood of Kurt knowing more about what had gone on here tonight than he was saying. Their gate was no more than fifty feet from where Rachael lay.

Behind her, to the north, was unfenced bushland belonging to her husband. Kennedy owned something like two hundred acres, running from Merton Road to the river.

‘How long will it take for the ambulance to get here, Doctor Hunter?'

‘Twenty-five miles at thirty miles an hour, if they're lucky – and maybe longer if they haven't got that fire out,' Rob replied. ‘The sky is looking clearer.'

‘It is,' Tom said. ‘I reckon she's under control.' He sniffed at the air, which was still smoke tainted but with a whiff of cow and eucalyptus this morning. Rising then from his squat, he wiped the gravel from his hand on the seat of his trousers. ‘I was talking to one of the Willama chaps last night. He said they expected she'd burn herself out if she didn't jump the river and get into the state forest. Keep the old fingers crossed, eh?'

Rob yawned, rubbed at his long jaw. He looked his age this morning, looked more than his age. Long, lean and craggy, his features carved to suit his frame; his hair was white but he had plenty of it.

‘I saw your lights burning late last night, Rob.'

‘We delivered an infant.'

‘Whose?'

Rob lowered his voice. ‘Young Ruby Johnson. Her brother, Willie, brought her in not long after midnight.'

‘No! She's working in Melbourne, or so I heard two days ago.'

‘She's in my hospital dying, Tom – maybe already dead. We saved the infant.' He yawned again, took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, offered it. The two men lit up and Kurt, who had stepped back while they were speaking, picked up his bike.

With plenty of light about now, Tom studied the blood on Kurt's shirt. One and one had a bad habit of adding up to two, and that lad had the looks and the build that might turn a young married woman's head, or her mother's. He was around Tom's height, not much more than a lad, but hard labour had built him a fine pair of shoulders. He'd always seemed a decent type, well mannered, hardworking. The first time Tom set eyes on him, around eight years ago, he'd been ploughing one of those front paddocks, three giant horses pulling the plough and that boy barely as tall as the horses' hairy knees. Something about him reminded Tom of young Ronnie, even back then, something about the shape of that nose and the brow, the hair colour, the way his blond hair grew. He shrugged, shaking off the thought and dragging his mind back to the moment.

‘Where's your brother, Kurt?'

Kurt nodded towards the house. ‘He was sleeping when I left.'

‘He wasn't with you when you found Rachael?'

‘Perhaps you didn't hear me, Mr Thompson. I said my brother was sleeping when I left the house this morning.'

And very definitely said, too. Tom turned again to the Reichenberg property, allowing his eyes to follow the well-kept fences, and back across Kennedy's Road to Jack Larkin's bare acres.

‘Her handbag,' Kurt said, stepping nearer. The two men turned to him. ‘She had a handbag with her.'

‘I didn't sight any handbag,' Tom said, glancing around, looking at Rob for confirmation. Rob shook his head and both men looked again at the girl, around her. ‘There's no handbag here now. Are you sure you saw it?'

‘When I lifted her, the bag's strap was across her shoulder. It was beside her when I rode into town.' He looked at his open palm, Rachael's blood visible there. ‘I have to wash. I'll come back, Mr Thompson.'

Tom caught his wrist, turning the right hand, then taking the left, turning it palm up, palm down. ‘You've got a lot of her blood on you, lad.'

‘I didn't know she was bleeding. I was going to carry her to my mother. I didn't know she was injured . . . until I felt the blood.'

‘But you remember she was holding on to her handbag?'

‘Its strap was over her shoulder. I felt it when I lifted her. I saw it, held it. It was beside her when I rode into town.' He looked towards the forest, towards Mason and his herd. ‘Someone has taken it. It was here, Mr Thompson.'

‘Righto. It was here and now it's gone. You'd better be gone too, lad, or there'll be no milk for anyone's breakfast. Oh, and don't go washing that shirt.'

Kurt rode off, both men staring after him.

‘You think he knows more than he's saying, Tom?'

Tom tilted his helmet, scratched at his head, shrugged. ‘I dunno, but I'd near stake my life on that lad being lily white.'

‘Given the right circumstances, no man is lily white,' Rob said, his world-weary eyes following the bike rider until he merged with the trees and buildings.

Joseph Reichenberg had built that house, made every clay brick in it, hand-cut every shingle on the roof, carved the fancy woodwork on the gable and over the front windows. A tradesman of renown, Joseph Reichenberg, he'd set himself apart with that house. Molliston may have been more accepting of him had he built it from local timber, roofed it with corrugated iron.

Eight or ten families of German origin had settled in Molliston around the turn of the century. They'd formed their own community, built their own church, wed their own kind. There had been no real trouble – not until the war, when it had become patriotic to hate your neighbour if he had a German name.

Rudolf Schmidt, who'd owned the boot shop, had seven Australian-born offspring. They'd seen the way the wind was going to blow and early on obtained references of their father's good character from Rob and the parson. Overnight the name above the boot shop was painted out, and
Smith
painted there in its place. The C of E parson, whose house was situated next door to their business, accompanied them to his church the following Sunday, and every Sunday thereafter until the war ended.