The Horse Thief (34 page)

His mother's room. Wrapped in her quilt. A dream. A bad dream.
Sleep tight, Jimmy boy. It will be better in the morning. Morning. No
. He had to leave.
Jefferson.
He groaned, his head pounded. The scent of wildflowers again.

‘You were knocked insensible.' She threaded her hair through her fingers, pulling it back from her face. Staring at him with eyes that saw right to his core.

Insensible? Knocked? Who? How?
He could fight. Fight with the best of them. Why hadn't he defended himself?

‘Papa …'

Papa? Kilhampton. Bloody hell!
He slumped back.

‘Lie still. You'll do more harm than good.'

Images, flashing too fast. Kilhampton.
Your father stole my wife … and now my daughter. India?
Why wouldn't his lips form the word? Say her name.

‘Let me raise your head.' Her soft hand slipped behind his neck.
Impossibly difficult.
His eyes closed. Cool water dripped down his throat. He swallowed, swallowed more. His breath caught. The cough raced through his chest, and dreading the pain he forced it down. He pushed her away.

‘Gently.'

His breath exploded. The agony blossomed and burst. India standing by the bed. Frowning.
Don't frown. Smile, India.
He wanted her to smile. To remember her smiling when he left.

The ache settled and he took a tentative breath.

‘What happened?' he repeated. ‘Tell me.'

‘You and Papa fought. Papa …'

Oh God!
What had he done? ‘Did I hurt him?'

A gentle smile. ‘No more than he hurt you. I don't think you even knocked him down.'

He struggled up the bed, pushed down the quilt. ‘I have to leave. Where's Jefferson?'

‘You can't go anywhere, not like this, besides—' she ran her cool hand over his bare chest, ‘—you have no shirt on.'

He looked down at his chest. His shirt? Where had it gone? He needed his clothes. They'd be coming soon, looking for him. Not here. He couldn't bring them here. ‘My clothes, they're still here. I have to leave.'

‘No, Jim, you don't have to leave.'

‘But, the gaol. I'm wanted. Just get my clothes, a shirt and Jefferson. I saddled Jefferson.'

Her hand was heavier now, forcing him back down against the bed. The muscles in her arm tightened, filling the blue puff of her sleeve. Her skin was so smooth. He raised his hand and let it fall. Not for him.

‘Fred has taken care of Jefferson. Papa dropped the charges.'

Over the wall. Because the opportunity presented itself. Because the prospect of incarceration was more than he could bear. Because whoever said honesty was the best policy was wrong, so very wrong. None of it mattered. Helligen was not for him. And neither was this glorious vision hovering over him, her hand warm against his bare flesh.

‘I can't stay, India. They'll come for me. You, your family will be drawn into the mess. I can't do it. I, my father, we've caused enough grief. I must leave.'

‘You're not going anywhere. Not now. Not until you have healed. Only the family know you're here. No-one will say anything.' Her eyes darkened. ‘Leave when you're healed.'

‘Your father …'

‘Papa dropped the charges of theft.'

‘And now assault?'

She shrugged her shoulders. As if it didn't matter, as if it was nothing that he'd taken to Alexander Kilhampton with his fists.

‘I'll speak to Papa and we'll sort it all out.'

The last time she said that he'd ended up behind bars.

‘It will be different this time.' She'd read his mind. ‘It's almost morning.'

‘I'll leave today.'

Her eyes dimmed, and she turned. The outside door opened. ‘He's awake.' The tone in her voice was as distant as the space she'd put between them.

‘He could do with something in his stomach, then.'

Peggy. Only the family.
How big was the Kilhampton family? Who did it include? Its control spread far and wide. The Hunter, Newcastle, Sydney …

‘I see you're with us now. Gave us a bit of a fright, you did. You and the master should know better. Bickering like a pair of street urchins.'

Bickering? He shook his head. Nothing made sense. It was more than bickering. ‘What time is it?'

‘It's morning, still dark. Some of us lesser mortals are familiar with the dawn.'

The gurgling in his gut rumbled upwards.

‘When did you last eat?' Peggy appraised him like a joint of meat ready to prod, to test his quality.

He shrugged. ‘Can't remember.'

‘You stay there. I'll be right back. Fine nursemaid you make, miss, allowing your patient to starve.'

India hovered in the doorway while Peggy trundled to and fro collecting the bowls, bottles and bandages. ‘You stay here. Keep an eye on him.'

‘I need to go and see Papa.'

‘You won't be seeing him for a while. He's sleeping it off. And it's not just the punches. According to your mother he drank enough to fell an ox.' Peggy snorted. ‘Looks like he did.' The door slammed behind her, leaving him alone once more with India.

‘India? Help me. To remember everything.'

She pulled the timber chair next to the bed, her movements slow. She must be so tired, bone-weary. He should let her sleep, but he had to know. ‘I went to the barn to get Jefferson. Your father was there. He fell. I went to help him up. Did I hit him?'

‘I don't know, Jim. I haven't spoken to him. Mama found you both, in the barn. Do you remember that?' A frown creased her forehead. ‘Why did Papa hit you?'

The fog in his mind swirled and cleared. The vision of Mrs Kilhampton with hands on her hips defying her husband flashed before him. Kilhampton believed his father had stolen more than his horse. Did India need to know that her father believed Thomas Cobb had stolen his wife? Was he going to lie to her again?

She saved him from finding an answer. ‘Peggy will be back in a moment. I'll return later. I have things I must do.'

What things? Talk to her father.
He struggled to sit.

‘Lie down, and rest.' She left in a swirl of blue, as unreachable as a midsummer sky.

Rest.
How could he rest? Colours, words, snippets of thoughts all blurred in his mind in a never-ending stream. Mrs Kilhampton and his father, Goodfellow, the gaol, India, the river, the touch of her skin and lies, lies and more lies …

He gave up on sleep and pushed the quilt back. The candle hissed and spluttered in a pool of its own wax. Through the open door he picked out the shape of the easy chair by the fire, imagined his father sitting, recording the day's events. He felt his mother's touch, heard his brother's laugh. This was the home of his childhood, where it all began and where it would end. The end of his dreams. Jefferson would never race. Never stand at stud.

The candlelight faded, replaced by the pale morning sun slanting across the bed. It was time to leave.

‘I've brought you something to eat and a visitor.' Peggy elbowed the door open and entered the room, bringing with her the smell of chicken broth.

His mouth watered, then dried.

Kilhampton stood behind her. One arm nonchalantly raised against the doorjamb, as though he hadn't a care in the world. ‘We have unfinished business,' he said.

Jim's stomach turned. He wanted no more of Kilhampton and his unfinished business. It was over.

‘Let the poor boy have some food before you start haranguing him.' Peggy placed the tray on the small table beside the bed, unfolded a napkin then spread it across his lap.

He searched Kilhampton's face for evidence of last night's debacle. Puffed skin tinged with blue matched his icy eyes and the corner of his lip showed a slight split. There was no doubt he was the victor. He clenched his fist. Why hadn't he retaliated? Because of some misbegotten belief that he might hurt the man?
What a joke!

‘Here.' Peggy pressed a spoon into his hand, forcing his fingers to relax. ‘Small sips, slowly.' She gave Kilhampton a withering glance. ‘And don't you disturb his eating. You've done enough damage.' With a look to quell the devil she left.

‘May I come in?'

Jim nodded. He could hardly refuse. He lay in a bed on the man's property, an accused horse thief, and an escaped prisoner. What exactly did India mean when she said her father had dropped the charges?

‘Eat. While you eat I'd like to talk.'

Jim blew on the broth, examining it, trying to convince his stomach it would enjoy it once he got it down his throat, once Kilhampton said what he had to say.

The chair grated across the floorboards as Kilhampton pulled it closer to the bed, then he sat astride it, bringing with him the smell of soap and a new day. ‘Can you manage?'

Even if Kilhampton was the last man on earth and he was dying of starvation he wouldn't accept his help. He grunted and swallowed the first spoonful of broth, his throat tight and his stomach rebelling. He held it down.

‘When Laila and I bought Helligen your parents were already here. So were you, if I remember rightly.'

Jim nodded. He had few recollections of Kilhampton other than a big man who carried his daughter on his shoulders. More memories of India in fact, but then children always attracted children and the rules and regulations of society didn't impinge on their lives. It was only later when class and rubbish like that labelled you a have or a have-not that it mattered.

‘Your father knew it all. Every bit of the property, how it worked, who to call on. I bought the place lock, stock and barrel. I wanted it all for Laila, and India and the sons that would follow. Helligen would be the making of our family. Laila and I started with nothing, two kids shipped out paying for their parents' sins.'

Jim lifted his head. Paying for their parents' sins. How ironic. He wouldn't have picked the Kilhamptons of Helligen as convict spawn. He cast his mind back, trying to envisage a time when free men were in the minority. Transportation had ended over twenty years before. The ships, the business. Kilhampton & Bryce? Violet's affectations. India presented to the governor, the political connections, houses and businesses in Sydney.

‘I worked as a barrow boy on the docks.'

Jim swallowed a mouthful of broth, his stomach settling as he ignored Kilhampton's pristine white shirt and neatly tied cravat and concentrated on the fact the man was once a barrow boy.

‘Campbell took a shine to me. Offered me a job in his ship-building business. I built my first boat with my bare hands. Built it for Laila. We'd been together in the orphanage. Both taken from our mothers at the Female Factory. Years later I found Laila working in an inn at The Rocks. I married her. The cabin on an unfinished hull was our first home. When I'd served out my apprenticeship I started trading, and so
Kilhampton
was born.'

‘Kilhampton?'

He gave a smirk. ‘Hampton, London, that's where I was born. Kill-Hampton. Forget the past. A new beginning deserves a new name.'

Not even his own name, an assumed name. Good enough for the likes of the landed gentry but not for him. ‘And Bryce?' Why was he interested, why did he care? Something in the man's eyes, a determination masked by grief and failure, despite everything he had.

‘Cecil brought to the business something I could never emulate. An air of respectability. Not convict stock. A free settler. Money, society, connections. My family would have it all.'

Jim's head reeled. He replaced the soup bowl on the table by the bed and sat up a little taller. Who would have thought … it made no difference. Once free of their dubious background Sydneysiders became the most intolerant self-serving members of society, determined to erase their connections with the past. ‘What has this to do with me? With my father?' The remnants of last night's anger swirled inside him, the warmth of the soup flaming the fire in his belly. So the man came from humble beginnings. None of it excused the way he'd treated his father. Treated him.

‘Your father was the backbone of this place. And he knew horses. How he knew horses! He picked out Goodfellow, from a disposal sale. Some other Hunter property down the drain because of the depression.'

So casual. No thought for the people whose homes and futures relied on those properties.

‘I was jealous of him. He was so competent, it was plain he'd make a better master of Helligen Stud than me.'

He cocked his head to one side—had he heard right? Alexander Kilhampton was jealous of
his
father.

‘I returned to what I knew. Trading and my ships. Laila managed the property. She rode well and had an aptitude for life on the land and a love of horses I couldn't fathom. She worked so hard. Together she and Cobb built the stud. He fired her with dreams, dreams I didn't even understand.'

And now Kilhampton's accusations last night made sense. It was an awful thing to believe the woman who held your heart did not love you, did not admire you. Something he was learning very quickly.

‘My view of you was clouded by the past. I shouldn't have let it happen. I have dropped the charges against you.'

Thank you very much.
Right at that moment he couldn't forgive the man. No matter how the past had clouded his judgement. He shouldn't have levelled the charges against him in the first place. It might remedy the question of horse theft, but what of escape and assault?

‘I've sent Tom Bludge to Maitland Gaol. All charges are dropped. The letter says the ex-prisoner, you, left of your own accord. There will be no further ramifications. You were wrongfully detained. It also says you are now here.'

Kilhampton gave the final twist. He'd told them where he was. The constabulary would be here. He might apologise but the man couldn't be trusted further than he could throw him, and judging by last night's experience that wouldn't be very far.