Salt Creek (24 page)

‘I should have looked at their teeth before I paid; half of them broken-
mouthed. Took me for a fool. Took him for a gentleman,' Papa said.

‘What does that mean?' I said.

‘Too old to lamb.'

It was the same at Tinlinyara. And the fleeces were poor too, from their time at Salt Creek. The sand had blown into them, as they did into our hair, and blunted the shears. And they were full of burrs too. It could hardly have been worse.

For several evenings together Papa was restless and could not settle to anything, but looked around as if about to call us to attention, to make one of his announcements. Finally, one evening he spoke; it would have been November by then. He told Fred he would have to leave and work for Mr Baker, who he had bought the cheese moulds from. ‘I'm sorry for it,' he said, ‘but there is no choice.'

‘To work at the lakes.' Fred's cutlery clattered to his plate. ‘You go and work for him.'

‘Frederick, look at me.' And Fred did look at him, which I did too. Papa's face did not move and its lines were not greatly changed from when Mama died – perhaps a trifle deeper – and his eyes were very dark and without expression. I could see the parts on his clothes that I had mended: an odd button, a binding of blue serge on his frayed cuffs and collar, the concealed patching on his trousers that had taken so long. There was nothing really that had changed about him, but that he had changed completely in a way that could not be seen was certain from the stillness that we stood within. Papa spoke again. ‘You are too young to run Salt Creek. I cannot leave the girls alone. I am not talking of being away for a few days.'

‘It's quite all right, Papa,' I said. ‘Not that I would want you to go, but I don't need looking after. I can do very well, and mind Addie as well. There is nothing that I cannot do, that I do not do anyway.' Really, I learned then that I would miss Fred more than Papa. The thought of it was uncomfortable.

‘They would not be alone; they'd be with Tull and me,' Fred said. ‘We've done it often enough.'

‘And me,' Albert said. ‘I'm as good as Fred. Better.'

Tull watched with interest but said nothing.

‘Three boys. I can't leave three boys to run Salt Creek.'

‘A boy,' Fred said. ‘That is all I am, is it? If you had been less strict with Hugh and Stanton it would not have come to this.'

‘And why not you?' Papa asked. ‘Why not? Are you afraid?'

‘Not to leave the run, or to leave our family. But if I go only as far as Lake Albert there will be no way out. I must stay here else I shall never leave.'

‘You must.'

‘I work here.
Here
.'

‘When you have the time, when you have finished one of your sketches.'

‘That is not true, Papa,' I said.

Fred leapt to his feet. ‘Please. A little longer.'

‘You can work on your book at the lakes.'

‘I can't. Everything is different there.'

‘You must.'

‘Send me and Addie to town,' I said. ‘I could work there – in service, or teaching – and send the money back.'

‘No. You are
my
daughters,' Papa said. He smoothed his moustaches with his tapered fingertips, and palmed the length of his beard. ‘It is an arrangement we have,' he said to Fred. He took care not to meet his eyes.

‘What arrangement?' Fred asked.

‘I bought the cheese moulds from him.'

‘On credit,' I said.

Papa stared at me. ‘Yes, on generous terms. However the cheese failed and now the sheep have not produced as expected, so we agreed on an alternative payment.'

‘Which is?'

‘He will accept repayment in kind, or will commence proceedings against Salt Creek.'

‘In kind? What does that mean? We have nothing he would need.'

Papa looked away.

‘He means you, Fred,' I said.

A hand to his chest. ‘
Me
? I am “in kind”? Why stop there, Papa? Put a collar about my neck and a chain to lead me by and you may drag me there, for I tell you I will not go willingly. I am not something to be traded, and you are not my master that I must obey your bidding. I am myself.'

‘Not until you are of age you will find. That's the way of it. A lesson to learn.' Papa spoke with an edge of ghastly amusement – at having outwitted Fred? I was not sure.

‘Hugh and Stanton did as they wished.'

‘Against
my
wishes.'

‘How proud your father would be,' Fred said. ‘William Wilberforce
himself could not be prouder. Why stop there, Papa? I am a fine physical specimen, am I not? I would fetch a good price, enough surely to pay off your debts and allow you to be the gentleman.'

‘Stop this. Stop. Both of you,' I said, clutching Papa's forearm, all its muscle tensed, and with my other hand taking Fred's, which was clammy and trembling. ‘Only think, Grandpapa would help if we asked.'

Papa wrenched his arm away and his face worked. He half-lifted his hand. That was the first time I began to see of what like he was, of what purpose he was forged. I have seen it since, the ways that people are differently revealed: for a sliver of time I am outside myself and all that I feel – and curious. Even Fred's distress I regarded as if from a distance. Papa's will was not a part of him that could be altered, only revealed and tempered by circumstance. He was a person who would do what was necessary, but for his purposes alone, whatever he might believe them to be.

Albert stood then. ‘I'll go, Papa. If you can do without me here, I'll do it.'

Papa was distracted. He lowered his hand.

‘You're too young,' I said.

‘I'm big enough, as big as Fred,' he said, which was true. ‘And strong. I can work there as well as I do here, and Fred will be here still. He can do my work and his book.'

‘Fred,' Papa said, turning to him again, considering him and finding it wanting. (Poor Fred: so transparent in that moment. He could not help hoping and his face could not help pleading, and he could not help hating himself for sacrificing his brother, but he would do it anyway.) ‘Will you do Albert's work? I see that you will not, you couldn't. Your mind: it's no use to us here. If only you would put it to good use.'

‘I do,' Fred said. ‘It will be a good book, I know it.'

‘It's not the country for you,' Papa said. ‘It has no use for you.' He spoke with such dispassion, as if looking at an injured beast that would never come right.

And then Tull said: ‘Fred and I can share Albert's work. And get another shepherd to work past the Travellers Rest. It won't cost too much.'

Papa paused. ‘Yes,' he said, measuring him and his idea. ‘We could do that. Very well. Let us try that.' And that seemed to settle the matter.

Later, Fred stayed in the kitchen while I cooked dinner, staring into the pot of boiling potatoes, poking at them with his pocketknife, eating a carrot. ‘Papa thinks me useless,' he said. ‘Imagine that. I'm worth less than a black to him, his own son.'

‘He doesn't think that, you know he doesn't,' I said. ‘It's because of the money is all, and his plans.'

‘I will show him one day. He will take his words back. He will know what I am. I will make him see me.'

‘He sees you now.'

‘What could he see now? A son who thinks too much and will allow his younger brother to leave home in his stead? He is right. I should do it, but I cannot make myself. What can I do?'

‘Make it a good book,' I said. ‘And restore the family fortune.'

Fred laughed. ‘Is that all?'

‘All that matters to Papa,' I said. I went to the door and rang the bell and moved Fred aside. I drained the potato water into a bowl and put a good lump of butter into the potatoes and began mashing. ‘Here—' I handed the masher to Fred. ‘You do it, then some milk, not too much, salt, butter.'

‘Me?' he said. ‘Cook?'

‘Yes. And think, Fred, it could be worse. At least you have a plan.'

CHAPTER 14

Coorong, December 1859

ALBERT HAD LIVED ALWAYS IN THE SHADOW
of Fred's intelligence and Addie's liveliness. It took his departure that summer for me to perceive what he had been: willing, not given to volatility, affectionate. I wished I had given him more attention when I might have. If Fred felt ashamed that he had allowed his younger brother to leave home in his stead, I did not think it unreasonable. He moped for weeks until the arrival of Charles Darwin's new book
On the Origin of Species
, and a new sketch book, restored his spirits. Grandpapa had heard of and ordered it even before it was published. ‘I don't suppose there are many copies of it in this country,' Fred said, more than once.

‘I tell you Hett, it has given me a great deal to think about, even its subtitle: “Preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life”. It makes you think.'

After that, he wandered around the house at any opportunity reading aloud passages that were of particular interest – to him, if to no one else. He came into the parlour one night while I was playing the piano. Papa was reading, a glass of rum at hand.

‘What do you think about this?' Fred said. ‘This is on the subject of varieties reverting in some of their characters to ancestral forms. Darwin says: “they would to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock”. He uses cabbages as an example. Cabbages. And asks what would happen if they were left to their own devices in poor soil.'

‘Really,' I said.

‘Papa,' Fred said.

‘Yes,' Papa said.

‘What do you think would happen if you removed all the accoutrements of our civilization so that we had at our disposal nothing but the resources that the natives possess? Do you think it would be we rather than the blacks whose population would decline?'

Papa said, ‘People are not cabbages and our civilization possesses greater knowledge, which would enable us to make greater use of the available resources than the blacks. Pastures, for instance, or gold.'

Fred said, ‘But we couldn't eat the gold and the sheep do poorly on the pasture.'

Papa gave one of his narrow stares and I knew that he had seen the direction of Fred's thoughts. ‘We have resolved that problem. And see how the natives sicken in general?'

‘Mr Darwin says it is the fault of Europeans who bring disease with them. Wherever he travelled he saw the same thing. It's in his voyages. He found the same thing all over the world.'

‘Nonsense. They were sick long before we came. Smallpox. I have talked to the Reverend Taplin on the subject, a most sensible man. He believes that people who choose to live barbarously will always diminish towards extinction. As he says, “If ye live after the flesh ye shall die.” If we have done anything, it is to slow their decline with the things we give them.'

‘He thinks they were civilized once then?'

‘So I would suppose.' Papa hated to be questioned in such a way. It made him become haughty. He sat very straight and stared Fred down.

‘Well,' Fred said. He knew as I did that there would be no arguing a point that Reverend Taplin had made. Since he established a mission at Point McLeay and Papa chanced to visit him there they had maintained some contact. Reverend Taplin believed that native practices and traditions must be eradicated if the blacks were to become Christian and Papa agreed. I did not know what to think. Sunday morning was the dullest time of the week, though I was not to say so. But there was no denying that there were several natives about with the scars of smallpox, which they must have suffered before the arrival of white men in this area.

Fred opened the door and a burst of laughter came up from the dining room. Papa had settled to brooding once more. I left the room with Fred, who began to talk the moment the door had closed. ‘Obviously interbreeding doesn't do any harm. Look at Tull. He is vigorous and healthy and intelligent – more intelligent than anyone I know, I would say.'

In the dining room Tull and Addie were playing draughts.

‘Was he all right?' Addie asked.

Fred said, ‘He said that people are not cabbages.' They burst into laughter. ‘I thought you'd be pleased to know of his high opinion. Tell me, Tull. How long would I live if you left me on the peninsula, on my own?'

Tull looked at him thoughtfully. ‘In winter you would die of cold – maybe two nights. In summer you would die of thirst, although you need not.'

‘It wouldn't be food?'

‘Cockles. And one day you might catch a duck.'

‘Do you think so?' Fred's face lit up at this praise.

Then Tull said, ‘No. But you could try,' and we laughed again.

‘How long could you live there, Tull?' I asked.

He looked at me in a wondering way. Fred did too, as if I had asked the strangest thing.

‘For ever,' he said. ‘But I would need some company.'

‘I could keep you company,' Addie said.

He turned to her and gave a shy sort of smile. ‘Thank you.'

They had become quite friendly of late.

Papa came to the doorway. ‘Well, well,' he said dolefully, ‘you do sound merry tonight.'

It was as if we'd been shipwrecked on the Coorong that winter. The natives had left for their winter camp and weeks went by in which we saw no one but Mr Kruse on his mail boat. It was wet that year. The soaks expanded and new ones formed, covering great stretches of the stock route – spreads of water that on a still day reflected the sky. When my boots got wet while walking I lifted my skirts high and strode those shallow lakes and with the clouds at my feet it were as if I were stilt-walking the sky.

Papa brought us titbits of news from the Travellers Rest: a report that some natives near the lakes had been given poisoned damper, which killed them. What purpose would that serve but to save a few cows? There was also a rumour of a black killed near the Travellers Rest, found in sacking weighted with stone in a deep waterhole. Papa gave it no credence since no one had seen a body. ‘People are not animals,' he was wont to say, despite the evidence to the contrary.

Hearing the reports Fred said, ‘Would you say our civilization is reverting to a barbarous state?'

‘It's happened already,' Tull said, and grinned as if he had meant it for a joke, but I think he had not. I thought of the things that Papa had done for them, bringing provisions from the mission and fencing off sucks, but didn't say anything.

We were in the kitchen, where it was cosy at the end of a winter afternoon, the boys in from milking and feeding the house cows and a day driving the hay-loaded dray to sheep two miles away. Twice, the dray had bogged and had to be dug out. Now Tull whittled a spear and talked to Fred. It was blowing hard and grey outside, but inside the lamps glowed and the stove sent out its heat. Addie was making a sponge pudding, moving about to collect ingredients and mix them in their proper order. She had flour smudged on her cheek and Tull called her over and brushed it off; she held her face still for this and watched him and smiled a little. Everything seemed both ordinary and lovely at such times to me. A bowl of eggs in lamplight: if I could draw, I would draw this, or paint it.

‘This isn't barbarous,' Addie said.

Tull said, ‘No. But the men who took my mother were.'

‘Where did they take her?' Addie asked.

‘They came from Karta. The island of the dead people, where I came to life.'

‘Kangaroo Island,' Fred said. ‘Tull, Papa would not want the girls—'

Tull ignored him. ‘And they took her there. They rowed across and down the lagoon and stole women from along here.'

‘Tull,' Fred said, louder this time.

‘How did you leave?' Addie asked.

‘She took a boat, when I was a boy, and we escaped.'

Fred sighed at this, but did not bother to interrupt.

‘I wonder who your father was,' Addie said.

Tull pulled his shirt-sleeve up and held out his arm, paler than his hands. ‘A spirit,' he said. He was light skinned for a native, though still dark, like polished wood, and his eyes were lighter too, a golden brown, flecked. He looked what he was. ‘My people don't like my skin. They say it's ugly.'

‘Everyone teases me about my freckles. It is the way of things in families,' I said.

‘If I had been younger, a baby, my Narinyeri father might have killed me.'

‘Killed you?'

Tull grinned. ‘I was too fast; he couldn't catch me.' Then, seeing our horror, said, ‘I was too old. My mother wouldn't let him. But I am not as ugly as white people.'

‘Ugly!' Addie said.

‘I am used to you now. I don't see it any more. You are not too ugly.' He laughed at Addie's reaction. ‘No, not ugly at all.'

I could not help thinking of Stanton: his skin blistered and peeled and dried into lizard scale before it flaked again, leaving it raw pink underneath. As vigilant as we were with hats and bonnets, we could not help the burning when we were outside so much. The blacks walked about with hardly a stitch on all summer with no ill effect. It was a labour for us to live here. What would Papa think if he knew what the blacks thought?

I went into the larder to fetch some potatoes and an onion. When I came back Addie was sewing by the warmth of the stove. Tull and Fred were still talking.

‘Do all of you hate us?' Fred asked.

‘Hate you? I know you. How can I?' Tull held the spearhead up to the light, inspected it and, finding it wanting, returned his knife to the task, scraping carefully now. ‘But I don't understand you. All my family— They, we, were waiting for you.'

‘Why not try and stop us?'

‘How would we? We knew that you,
grinkari
would come with muskets. The ancestors knew about you.' He made a gesture with his hand next to his shoulder that I had seen before, his fingers feathering what lay behind. It meant a long time ago, generations. ‘Everywhere you go, you stay and don't leave. And then you arrived, at first only a few and then more, always more. Like ants – ant people, we call you. We knew it would happen. Some people say we will be cursed if we don't help you and that's why people get sick and die, as they did before in other places. It makes no difference if we hate you or don't hate you. We must live with you; you must live with us.'

‘We don't believe in curses.'

‘But in the bible there are curses. The locusts, the floods.'

‘They are stories,' Fred said. ‘They're not real.'

‘You don't think you are cursed? Your mother and sister are dead, your brothers have gone, your sheep are sick. A story does not have to be real to be true.'

‘Why would we be cursed? We are a good family. We treat you well. No one is killing you here,' Fred said.

‘But in other places?' Tull asked.

‘Who knows if those stories are true?'

‘They are true,' Tull said quietly. ‘My mother has seen it. She speaks English. She learned from the men on Karta. When she escaped she was married to someone from this
lakalinyeri
. But she is not from here. She spoke English to me. She said I should speak it so I could talk to the white men when they came. The
tendi
agreed.'

‘That's why you came to talk to us?'

He nodded.

‘Do you tell them about us?' Fred said.

Tull hesitated then. ‘I try to. They don't understand you.'

‘And you?'

He shook his head. ‘They share water and food. You take until there is nothing. They would like some land.'

‘But you may live on our land. Papa told you that. He fenced off the sucks.'

‘It's spoiled here. The water, the grass. The kangaroos are gone. We can't burn the grass and the bush. The land is going bad. It's not good for us here. They want land where white men don't come, to keep their women safe.'

‘Safe from whom?'

‘White men, of course.'

‘Which white men? From the island? Those days are done. Or do you mean from travellers? Do you want land away from the stock route? Don't you need the sea?'

‘From all white men.' He busied himself with his carving then, pulling back from the conversation in the delicate way he had when he didn't wish to offend.

Fred looked at Tull, rather stricken at first, and then angry. ‘My brothers?' Fred flung himself at Tull and tried to land a blow, and grappled him, but Tull writhed away quick as an eel, not trying to defend himself, merely moving out of reach.

Addie and I shrieked.

Fred did not do anything more, just stood, panting. His anger burned out as fast as dry grass. Tull was quiet. He had only said what was true. He was not a liar, as Fred knew.

I stood at a little distance, waiting for the knowledge to sink into and become part of me.

‘So much for Papa's dreams of enlightenment and reason,' Fred said.