Salt Creek (38 page)

‘Gone to look for Tull, of course, only I could not find him and it was cold out last night,' she said. ‘But I am well enough now. Hungry though.' We walked back towards Fred and Mr Martin. Addie did not approach close, but stopped for a moment to consider Mr Martin. ‘I think you will be dead soon.'

‘The fine young folk here have assured me not,' he said.

‘Because of Jane.'

‘Gone home to see her family. Pining. Took a ride with a bullocky passing through.'

‘Murderer,' she said.

‘Adelaide,' I said.

‘Yes, Adelaide,' Mr Martin said. ‘Fly away, Finches – all of you be gone. Leave me be here.'

Fred strapped the musket to his horse, and we mounted. Tull threw Addie up onto his horse and leapt up behind and she settled into the curve of him, his arms loose about her on either side and her curls in his face, which he rubbed his cheeks against, and we rode away from Mr Martin. I turned once to see if he were fetching a musket or anything of that sort. He remained at the fence and did nothing but watch, and watch, as if now he was waiting for something else. When I looked from the top of the hill, all had changed. He must have gone inside. In that light with the winking lights in its windows just beginning to show, like eyes, the low building put me in mind of an animal readying itself to spring. The creek at its feet licked out and the bulrushes lining its course were as bright as burning wicks in the orange light. I shivered to look at it and made haste to catch up with the others.

Fred rode in front and was silent and I was hungry and wishing to be home. The wind had turned cold and the heavy clouds had surged closer in a long line above the peninsula.

‘Fred,' Tull called after we had gone a mile or two, and sparse drops of rain had begun to spatter down. ‘We'll stop here, else the storm will get us.'

‘It'll pass us by,' Fred said.

‘If Tull says it's coming, it is, and we should do as he says.' Addie spoke as if it were a matter of fact, not a point of discussion.

‘Too dark for riding,' I said, ‘rain or no.'

‘And shelter where?' Fred said. The trees were no cover, and in the breaks between them, looking inland, there were only a few rocky outcrops and saltpans and distant flats, which by morning would be turning to bog. ‘Better to keep going.'

But without acknowledging Addie's words or Fred's dissent Tull wheeled his horse around and hardly thinking what I was doing I followed him and Addie from the track onto unbroken ground, the loose stone rolling beneath the horses' hooves. What could Fred do but follow? We dismounted to save the horses and stumbled more than once. Bushes and a small species of gum tree grew about the base of a low boulder-strewn hill that we circled a little inland, thicker at the back, and we pushed past them and came to a limestone overhang. It was lower than head height – no one but Addie could stand there – and invisible from two or three yards away for the scrubby plants around it, yet Tull went directly to it as you might go to a barn or a wood heap or anything else in plain sight. He knew it was there; it was nothing to him to have found it with such ease.

We tethered the horses near some grass and removed their saddles. Addie collected what sticks and branches lay strewn about; it was a novelty to see her become industrious and to know what we needed. She and Tull had done this before. The rain began and the ground steamed and such a smell of wet bark and wet leaves and damp soil rose around us. Tull struck up a fire with his flint. We had nothing but oat biscuits to eat so we sat about the fire in the deepening dark, eating around their edges and slowly inwards to make them last longer, and watching the flames and the wood turning to frail coals. Skipper and Sal crept close. I fed them half a biscuit each and they licked at the crumbs and that was all there was. They sighed and put their noses on their paws.

‘You called him murderer,' I said to Addie.

‘He is. I'm sure of it.'

‘Then why did you stay when Tull tried to make you leave?'

‘I thought it was just stories. I thought I could manage him. I managed Papa well enough – until Grace came, at least – and those troopers and Mr Stubbs. Men don't frighten me. It
was
all right until Mrs Martin left. I managed him; I had him on a string. And I wanted my money.'

‘Papa's money,' Fred said.

‘He will never see it,' Addie said.

Fred would have spoken again. To distract them from one of their old bickering exchanges I said, ‘But you changed your mind.'

‘Something he said. It doesn't matter now.'

Tull said, ‘What?'

‘A stupid thing. He said, “Women are so soft. Plump little pigeons. Their necks are so small.” And he did this.' She stroked her throat with the tips of her fingers and thumb, and shuddered.

‘Poor Jane,' I said.

Tull stood and went, half-crouching, to the edge of the overhang and remained there hunched, looking out into the darkness. ‘I should catch something.'

‘Don't,' Addie said. ‘Stay. You'll get lost; you'll go missing; I'll never see you again.'

‘How would I get lost?' Tull said over his shoulder to her, puzzled. ‘I could never get lost here.'

Addie went to him and rested her cheek against his back and slid her arms around him. I saw her gentleness and how she had done this before; also from her grave face that she wasn't a child any longer. ‘Just stay then, for me. I'm not hungry.'

‘Addie,' I said, but she paid me no attention. Tull turned and put his arms around her and pulled her deep into the shelter.

Fred said nothing. He took a saddle and one of the horse blankets and withdrew to the far end of the overhang. He pulled his collar up about his ears and his hat over his head and rolled himself in the blanket behind the wall of his saddle. I was beyond caring, and could see no way for anything to come good, not for a single one of us, and put some more wood on the fire and curled up with the dogs, a blanket around us, on the other side of the fire from Addie and Tull. I could hear nothing but the hiss and snap of burning wood and threw myself into sleep to be done with this day and my life if only for a few short hours.

Tull had the fire going when I woke next morning and the billy was on its way to boiling. Addie sat beside it, her skirts wrapped tight about her ankles to keep them from the flames, and poked at the coals and twigs with a long stick. Her face had become hectic in the heat, and smudged, and in other circumstances this could have been some childhood adventure to the peninsula to see if whales or ships might be seen. But Addie was not in an adventure; she was in the midst of some grim reckoning by the look of her.

‘Papa is away?' she said, her eyes unwavering on the flames.

‘At Tinlinyara.'

‘Expected back?'

‘I don't know. Soon, I suppose. The rain will slow him.'

‘We won't risk stopping then, Tull and I. There's no gain in it.'

‘Where will you go?' I said. I did not even think to try to forbid her. How would I? I could not restrain her or save her, or send Tull away. I would not hold a musket to her. She had set her course, and I would not try to change it again.

‘To Raukkan, of course, to get Grace back.'

‘And then?' Fred asked.

‘People make their way, Fred.'

‘They do, but you need not, not today anyway. He will be at least two more days I think, three with the rain; he's always longer than he reckons on. He might think differently when he sees what Tull did for you.'

Addie looked up from the fire then and her eyes moved across his face in some judgement. Did he believe what he was saying? Something like that. She knew as well as any of us, especially now, that Papa was not a mutable person. Still, some fear made her clutch at the hope of him changing his mind. Her expression became earnest. ‘Do you think so, Fred, really?'

For a moment, Fred's sincerity almost persuaded me that he was right. It was his hope too. Then, as if they shared the same memory at the exact same time, their faces became suffused with doubt. I felt it too. Papa beating Addie: that's what I thought of.

‘No,' she said. ‘We will not risk it. We will ride on through. We have my money, and will collect Tull's and be on our way.'

Tull came back with a possum he had beaten from a tree and singed the fur off it all over – which smell I loathe – and flung the bald creature on the fire and buried it in coals. Once, Addie would have sighed over what a sweet thing the possum was and how cruel boys were, but she said nothing in this vein to Tull, only leaned forward and sniffed at the roasting smell wafting from the fire, and smiled at him. In everything that they did there was awareness of the other; their movements together were a slow dance of fine adjustments. Addie placed a stick just so and Tull passed her another; she handed him a beaker of steaming tea, which they shared as they sat leaning against each other and staring into the flames. Addie put her hand on Tull's leg and he put his hand over hers. How could I stop them? Fred glanced at them from the other side of the fire, then pushed two wet leaves into the fire and watched them steam and smoke and finally burst into flame. They burned fast.

When the rain had quite stopped we packed our things and after we had finished, our shelter seemed more an empty room than a rock formation. How quickly it had become home. We knew what might happen there and now everything was uncertain.

Between the rise we were on and the distant track the ground had become a mosaic of standing water and drowned succulents and marsh. We began to pick our way across it, keeping to what high ground there was, following Tull, who moved more surely than the rest of us. There was no keeping our feet dry, and if mine were miserably cold I was sure it was the same for us all. The only sound was of feet and hooves splashing and the wind buffeting past and very high overhead and faint the sound of birds fading north. Addie and I held our skirts, but they got in our way and we couldn't see our feet. More than once I tripped on a submerged rock or uneven ground. My skirts became muddied and heavy, and the wind chilled my wet hands. It was no wonder when Addie, walking ahead of me, fell hard with a quick scream. Her eyes were wide and stricken, and try as she might she could not regain her feet and cried out again when she tried to put her foot to the ground. She sank back and clutched her ankle and her face was so grey and bloodless looking about at us all that I became truly alarmed and hurried forward.

She moaned. ‘Not broken. Please let it be all right.'

Tull pulled his horse about and plunged towards her ungainly as a drunk in his haste; we reached her side together. Fred stumbled up and took our reins. Tull sank to Addie's level and felt about her ankle, which was plainly swelling. I crouched then and unlaced her boot and took it off. She sobbed and put her hands to her ankle. ‘No. No. We will keep going anyway. I don't care if it's broken,' she said.

I did not know if it was broken or not. It looked straight enough. ‘Just a sprain, I think. But you can't walk,' I said.

‘On the horse now,' Tull said. He helped her stand on her one good foot and lifted her up and her wet stockinged foot hung against the horse's flank. She couldn't put it in the stirrup.

And so we kept going and regained the stock route; at least we were off the ground then. But mud flopped from the horses' hooves and flicked up and they slid about and Addie could not help crying out once or twice, though I think it was a little better with Tull behind, holding her. She was terribly white still. ‘I'm so cold,' she said once, and I could see her shivering.

Tull caught my eye.

‘One or two days' rest before you go on, Addie,' I said. ‘You can't travel like this.'

‘No,' she said, but it came out on a moan. Tull rubbed his cheek against hers and murmured something. She shook her head. ‘I'm frightened to go there.' But the horse lost its footing and Addie cried out again. ‘One night then,' she said.

Clouds scudded the sky, plunging us in and out of shade, and all around were the sounds of water dripping from trees and the flashing movements and raucous calls of birds. I am not sure we would have heard anyone approaching even had we been alert. Skipper and Sal lifted their heads, though, and darted ahead; I should have taken note of that.

Tull said, ‘Addie!' and lunged for the side of the path.

It was too late. Papa came riding at a canter around a sharp turn in the track and was upon us.

CHAPTER 20

The Coorong, April 1862

‘THANK GOD, YOU ARE HERE,' PAPA SAID
, ‘all well and unharmed. I thought I would ride up the track in the hope that you were coming. And Tull too. Good day to you.' He came close. His face was like some weathered escarpment. Grey dirt had settled deep into the crevices and lines that fell at the sides of his mouth and down his cheeks, and the rain had splattered him too. It gave him a deathly sort of appearance.

Dismay made us mute. Addie stared at Papa with horror. Tull's gaze, frantic, darted past Papa and off the side of the track.

‘No need to run, Tull. Come back home now and you can all tell me what has happened.'

‘But how did you know we'd be coming this way?' I said.

‘Did you not see the police? The maid from the Travellers is missing.' Papa shook his head. ‘Of course you must know that. They've come from Wellington to make enquiries. I got back late yesterday, and found the house cold, and was worried at you all being gone, and Adelaide at the Travellers Rest. The troopers came to see if we knew anything and stayed overnight. They have suspicions about Mr Martin.'

‘We were off the track last night,' Fred said. ‘They must have passed before we started this morning.'

‘That will be it,' Papa said. ‘Well, come along now. We can have tea when you get home. I suppose you will be hungry too.' He swung his horse about and, without deciding to, we were riding together. ‘He did not harm you, Adelaide?'

‘Thanks to Tull. And Hester and Fred. They came to keep me safe.'

Evidently Papa heard the reproof in her voice. ‘We had no reason before to think you unsafe. Mr Martin deceived us all. I would not have thought it of him. However, be that as it may, thank you, Frederick and Hester, and Tull.' His voice was calm reason and he bent his head courteously towards each of us in turn. Everything about him was designed to smother an outburst. (I did not see that then, only that I was glad that our voices were low.) Papa rode alongside Tull and Addie, perhaps a half-head in front and rather close, which made it appear that he was leading them. His leg bumped Addie's and she cried out and Tull pulled his horse a little further away. Papa moved to stay with them. ‘You have hurt yourself, Adelaide?' he said pleasantly.

‘Only a little,' she said. She did not look at Papa. She would not.

‘We think it's a sprain,' I said.

‘But we'll keep going,' Addie said. ‘To get Grace.'

‘Indeed?' Papa said.

‘You will not stop us,' Addie said. ‘Not this time.'

Tull held Addie tighter and glared at Papa. ‘We are leaving the Coorong,' he said. ‘No one will know. We will collect Grace and be on our way.'

‘You surprise me, Tull. Addie can't travel, and you will wish to see your family,' Papa said.

‘Why?'

‘You have not heard about your mother?'

‘No,' Tull said.

‘She has just died, as I discovered last night. I am sorry for it, if you didn't know.' He turned to see the effect of this on Tull and a secretive look slid across his face. ‘It was fortunate I found you.'

‘Do you lie?' Tull said in a harsh voice. His face blazed and for a moment it seemed he would lunge across the gap between them and attack Papa.

Papa pulled his horse sharply away. ‘No,' he said. ‘I swear it, on the holy bible.' He leaned and touched his saddlebag and Tull appeared suddenly so desperate that I thought he might plunge from the path right there. Addie gasped at another misstep and Tull held himself in check. ‘Come then. We can travel together for now.'

We rode on, Fred and I behind, beneath the iron sky. Tull and Addie, their heads together, spoke so low that I could not hear them. Papa was quiet, but he turned often to watch them, close as they were. Then Addie's voice lifted. ‘No, Tull. Take me with you. Please. It will end badly if I go to the point. I am sure of it.'

‘You can't come, not for this. I can't take you. But I will come back. Wait for me here. You'll be safe.' He turned to me. ‘Hester? Will you care for her?'

‘Of course,' I said, though I could not help wondering what Papa might do.

‘See?' Tull said.

We arrived at the turnoff to the point and stopped. The horses shifted their feet and their heads, mouthing their bits, eager to be home.

‘Take the horse,' Addie said. ‘You'll be faster.'

Papa's hands rested easy on his pommel. ‘I think not. That is my horse. Tull would not want to take something that is not his, would you Tull?'

Addie said. ‘How can I stay here without you?'

‘You must. You can't walk,' Tull said. ‘And I can't carry you so far.'

Addie had been calm, but she cried out again, ‘Please, dear Tull,' and clutched his arm and began to cry.

Tull, desperate, said, ‘I don't want to leave,' stroking her wild hair back and wiping the tears away as much as he could, as he had wiped flour from her cheeks once. ‘I must first do this and then come back for you. I will. Believe me. It won't be long.'

She took his arm and shook it. ‘How long? Tell me quick now. I can't bear it.'

‘I'm not sure. Two weeks?'

‘Ride me down then. Stay with me a little longer.'

‘He can take his leave here, now,' Papa said. ‘I'm sure you can ride that distance on your own, Adelaide. Hester can lead you if you cannot manage.'

‘One minute,' Tull said, cutting him off, and looked so fierce that Papa fell silent. Tull drew their horse a little further away, his back to us, as if he had closed a door. His hand rose and from the way it moved, delicate and slow, I thought he must be stroking Addie's hair. Then his arms were very tight about her, and a high wail broke free of her. Fred rolled his eyes and picked at a thumbnail and adjusted his hat. He stared down the path. Tears pricked my eyes. I put my hand against my mouth to hold sound in. Birdie, restless, circled, and when I had pulled her round again Tull was on foot and Addie was looking down at him as if already she were seeing him from a distance: across a valley, the breadth of the lagoon.

Tull briefly turned his attention to Papa. ‘Do not harm her, Mr Finch. She will tell me.'

‘And do not threaten me, sir, over my own daughter,' Papa said.

‘We are all equal, are we not, in the eyes of God?'

Papa flushed at that.

Tull turned and walked away. His legs were so long and his pace so rapid that he was quickly among the trees. Addie watched until he was gone from view.

‘Come along now,' Papa said.

We followed him down the sodden path. The lagoon came into view once more: gouts of water lifting and falling away on its surface, and rivulets of mud bleeding into it from the banks. I drew alongside Addie and took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Not long, Addie. He won't be long.'

At the house, I helped her from her horse and up the stairs to the veranda; Fred and Papa removed the saddles and loosed the horses and came down the path to the veranda stairs. There was nothing overt of threat in Papa's manner, but his stillness and quiet and calm as he stood below us frightened me. ‘We'd best see to the fires, eh, Fred?' he said.

I sat Addie down before the dining room stove and pulled off her stocking. ‘It feels a little better I think,' she said, pressing her fingers to her ankle, and then, wincing, ‘No worse at any rate. Is it broken do you think?'

‘I don't know.' It was swollen and bruised violet at the joint, and tender to the touch. Would a break do that?

‘A week or two only, I hope. That will surely be enough,' Addie said. ‘If only Papa had not come back early, or we had left our camp later. I wish Tull had not gone, that we were riding now. He will be hungry. And Rimmilli. Poor Tull.'

‘Did you ever talk to her?' I asked.

‘Sometimes,' she said. ‘She tolerated me, no more. The other women were quite friendly.'

‘It was the same with me.'

Fred passed through the room with wood for the parlour, and then with more for the dining room. I made a cold compress and strapped it to Addie's ankle and put a stool before her to rest her foot on and she was more comfortable. Her shivering abated and her cheeks flushed pink as the fire warmed the room and I began to think of lunch – a hot broth for this cold day. There is comfort in the ordinary, not only for people. I fed the dogs and soon they came to sit at the stove side with us and I rubbed Skip's belly with my foot and she sighed and stretched out.

Fred and Papa rode out in the afternoon and were home in time for milking. In the evening Papa was at pains to be pleasant, as if he were trying to persuade us all, even himself, of his decency. He expressed proper dismay that Addie had slept alone in the bush overnight, and the story of our rock shelter set him reminiscing about his adventures in Patagonia. It was normal, or what might have been thought normal once but was no longer. Addie was with us again, and it seemed a month at least since our departure for the Travellers Rest only the morning before. It was hard to know which felt more unreal: the events that had passed or this pretence of tranquillity and amity. I could not be easy. Mr Martin had troubled me less; he did not hide his badness, even from himself. It was the opposite with Papa. There was no predicting what his politeness concealed. I watched him warily, and saw Fred and Addie doing the same. We were early to bed.

The following day passed quietly. Papa and Fred were occupied at the stable and about the sheds. Addie rested in bed in the morning, and in the afternoon began a new dress for Grace from remnants of dresses too worn to repair. I found her in the dining room over faded scraps of material, touching them with her fingertips and moving them as aimless as if they were seaweed in water.

‘What is it?' I said.

‘How much will she have grown? My own baby a stranger. Will she know me?'

‘Make it a little bigger and she can grow into it,' I said.

She sniffed and wiped her nose. ‘Yes.' And so the time passed, with Addie moving from one distraction to another. I could not see how the next few days would unfold. Addie would not be able to walk freely for a week at least – longer, even – and I could not imagine what Papa might do if she tried to leave with Tull.

The next afternoon, Papa sat on the veranda humming and ‘catching up on his book-keeping', he said, and cleaning the musket. When I asked him why, he said only that it might have got some mud or water in it on our journey to the Travellers Rest, but when the task was done he kept the musket at his side.

Addie hobbled about on a stout stick, coming to sew by the stove in the kitchen while I cooked, and talking, her words and tone following her moods, which were swooping and inconstant. I shaped bread dough into tins and set them to rise and churned fresh butter, stopping for a few moments only to run outside to be sick. Addie didn't notice. She resumed talking as soon as I came back.

‘We plan to go to the hills, to see what positions we might find there.' She paused in her sewing to address me directly, as if I had disagreed. ‘They must always be in need of good workers, and I can cook and sew besides. We don't need a great deal, and we have our money. If we keep saving we should do well enough. And we will have Grace. Tull will finally meet her. I hope they have cared for her as they should, that she has not forgot her own mama. Oh, I cannot wait, Hettie. If only you could be as happy.'

‘I am not sure about happiness. Charles was here while you were gone.'

‘Charles,' she said, in a wondering voice, and she scrutinized my face, which I kept very still, paying attention to the carrots I was peeling and chopping. I did not want to talk further of it; I could not without revealing too much. ‘Not for very long. A few days only.'

‘And what? What, Hettie? What happened?'

‘We spoke a little, and I don't know the rest. There is nothing more.'

‘But you like him.'

‘I do like him,' I said.

‘I hope he knows.'

‘He does. I told him so.' I bit my lip to stop smiling at the thought of him. Love was clear to Addie and confusion for me. She would never bite her lip at the thought of Tull.

At supper Addie poked at her food. She said, ‘I wonder how Tull is. When he will come.'

‘Two weeks at least,' I said.

‘He might come sooner. You don't know.'

Papa chewed his mouthful and swallowed. ‘As it happened I wished to talk of the future.'

‘My future is no business of yours,' Addie said.

‘You will not stir me to anger, Adelaide, try as you might,' Papa said.

‘I am not trying; I simply do not care,' she said. All her words and her manner were reckless.

‘Nevertheless, I have some news, which I think it is safe to say now.' He returned to fussing the food about his plate, chivvying a hillock of potato across to a scrap of chicken. ‘It is certain now that Tull's mother is dead; otherwise Tull would be back.'