Wild Lands (26 page)

‘January,' Adam offered.

‘Aye, January.' He returned to his stump and sat. ‘The settlers complained about there being no law and order after them men were murdered the year afore, so the troopers appeared they did, arrested some blacks and then kept on the tail of the main mob. Well, the blacks attacked them, as you'd expect them to do, and then they fled so the troopers rounded up a whole lot of the buggers. Killed them they did. Massacred them. Called the place Waterloo Creek, on account of that general, Napoleon. Nice touch.' He grunted a laugh. ‘So the blacks are uppity again.' His smile turned to a grimace.

On the dirt floor directly beneath the rough calendar were two perforated human skulls. The bone was smooth and shiny as if they received the benefit of regular polishing. The old man noted Adam's interest.

‘Those there heads belonged to my woman's kin,' he explained. Selecting one of the skulls he picked it up and, rubbing it briefly with a shirtsleeve, placed it on the floor again. ‘She be traded fair,
but then when the sugar and the tobaccy ran out they wanted her back. Seems the terms were meant to be ongoing, so I shot 'em one night and the next week others near bashed me head in. Well, fair is fair, I thought. Anyway, after that I reckon they decided to leave things be. But eventually they came for her. She's dead now, so we're square. You got grog, tobaccy?'

‘Nothing.' Adam finished the sweetened drink.

‘And not likely you be getting your hands on some neither unless you work for one of them squatters.' Returning the blackened pot to the fire, he patted one of the boys on the head. ‘The Lago Station Superintendent wanted me to be a hutkeeper, on account of this here hut sitting square on the station's boundary. Be damned, I told him. Risk getting speared to look after another's sheep?' A gnarled finger tapped his forehead. ‘I been around. You know what I'm saying? I been around. Finally he offered me some rations just to keep my eye out, you know, let him know of any goings on. In return he reckoned he'd keep quiet about me being a runner. 'Course I said yes. I took his sugar and flour, but ain't nobody comes through here. Only the black-haired woman and them settlers last year. Imagine settling up here? Desperate they must be. This is the blacks' land, they should leave 'em to it. At least there's no cat-o'-nine-tails here. I do alright. I'm a-living.' Dipping the ladle in the cooking pot, he scooped up the scant remains and sucked the spoon clean.

‘But he came back again, the Superintendent did. A while ago it was. A month past. All riled up and ready for a fight. Asked me if I wanted to come hunting. He wasn't talking about no wallaby neither.' The man sat the pot on the fire and added a drop of water. It sizzled loudly. ‘He told me that them that keep the law weren't much interested in sending troopers north to these areas. That if man and beast wanted to settle beyond the counties then they had to look after their own troubles. And there's trouble a-plenty up here.' The old man tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. ‘What
you here for then? Are you one of them riders out on the hunt? I don't want no troubles with the blacks. I keep to meself and they leave me alone. We've an understanding.'

‘Just passing through.' Adam thanked the man and opened the bark door.

‘No point leaving now, stay awhile. It be a hot one. Talk some more.'

‘I best keep moving.'

‘Suit yerself. I know what it's like, being on the hop. Stay low then, lad, stay low.'

The man was still muttering as Adam walked away from the hut. He headed east a bit and then circled back through the scrub, Jardi tailing him to ensure they weren't followed.

‘You on for a talk then?' Jardi chided.

‘Just passing the time of day.'

Bidjia was waiting for them. The men hunkered down among the trees as Adam repeated what he'd heard. ‘So we best keep our wits about us,' he told them. ‘By the sounds of things some of these settlers will be shooting first and not bothering to ask questions.'

‘This is bad business.' Bidjia poked at the dirt absently. ‘No good comes of settlers left alone to resolve disputes …' He looked up through the leaves sheltering them. ‘There are good and bad whites, we know this. Your people have renegades as we do, but what little hope I had in your white brothers, Bronzewing, has dried like a caked riverbed.'

Adam thought of Winston. ‘The settlers are scared and angry. They don't understand our ways.'

‘They wish we were like the grains of sand that could be blown away with the wind,' Jardi concluded, lying down to rest next to his father. ‘I wish the same of them.'

Adam checked the ammunition pouch tied to the belt about his waist. He hoped Bidjia only needed rest and that nothing else ailed him for there was still much travelling ahead. In the midday
heat his thoughts drifted to that of the settlers and the woman the old man had mentioned. It had to be the same girl he'd seen last year. The chances of it being another female were slight. But there was little point thinking about her, although the thought of that dark-haired beauty was a pleasant diversion. He sighed and, closing his eyes, conjured up the songlines that Bidjia had taught both him and Jardi. Hopefully the ancestor's footprints would lead them safely to the sea.

1838 May – the Hardy farm

Kate woke to the sound of scratching. Daylight was yet to arrive but the weak paleness that preceded dawn crept through the rough wall boards, layering the dim room in a pasty light. Level with her nose, only four feet away, was the outline of something against the wall. Rubbing at the crusty sleep in her eyes, the blurry shape grew clear. It was a spiky-looking animal in the corner of the narrow room.

Rising on her elbow she watched as the creature continued snuffling along the wall. Her shoe was the closest object. Reaching for it, she flung it as hard as possible in the direction of the animal. The leather made a loud thud as it hit the timber and fell to the dirt floor. The thing appeared to curl itself into a prickly ball.

‘What is it? Who's there?' The cook sat up, the wooden frame and sagging canvas of the cot creaking dangerously.

‘I'll get rid of it, Mrs Horton, don't you worry.' Kate stepped into a long beige cotton skirt, tugging it over the thin drawers and shift she wore and, slipping her arms into the matching boned bodice,
positioned the hem neatly over the skirt's waistband. A shawl completed her dress.

The cook swung her legs out of the cot with a pained slowness. ‘You'll do no such thing. You'll leave my Henry exactly where he is.'

‘Henry? It has a name?' she replied, tucking her hair beneath the straw hat.

‘Henry's been with me from the beginning. It's been a while since he's visited. Show'd up he did a month or so after we came here. Followed the ants what came in for the sugar he did, has 'imself a nice burrow under this hut. 'Course that mangy yellow mutt scares him off occasionally but he always comes back. Summer's his favourite weather, but he don't mind it when the leaves fall and the air gets chilled. Be a bit warmer today, Henry. You keep out of sight of Mrs Kable and later we'll walk down to the orchard. It's a fine sight, what with the windmill and the fields and the smokehouse in the distance.'

‘We're not on the Kable farm anymore, Mrs Horton,' Kate reminded the older woman gently. She had good days and bad, both with memory and sight. Yesterday Kate stopped her just in time from mixing sugar and salt together instead of flour for the bread.

Brown-coloured Henry was uncurling himself to reveal short limbs with claws and a long sticky tongue, which protruded from its snout.

‘There, you see, sees you as a friend he does. He's timid, Henry is, not like most men, so don't be scaring 'im.'

Kate scanned the room. Although roughly built against the wall of the kitchen, there didn't appear to be a gap big enough for the creature to have got in. The door had been kept shut during the night on account of the cold wind and the tiny window, a hole with its scrap of Indian cotton, was the only other entry point. The spiny creature waddled past Kate's chest to where Mrs Horton's few possessions sat on an upturned crate, walked behind it and disappeared.

‘Made a little hole for him, I did. Comes and goes as he pleases.' The cook picked up Kate's shoe and tossed it across to her.

Kate wondered what else could come and go from their room. Unlike the cook she was yet to be provided with a cot. With the heat of summer past, the earth was already cold. The chill travelled through the rough bedding to eat at one's bones, making her weary before the day began, but she could be grateful for the change in the seasons for there were no longer slithering, scuttling creatures entering their room, until Henry. Unchanged were the days of work, which could lead to despair, such was the isolation and monotony, and yet she worked constantly, almost grateful for the distraction. Exhaustion helped sleep, helped Kate to forget where she was, why she had come, what she'd left behind, and the native who lay dead by her hand. Most of all it helped ease her anger at the coin that should have been hers. She thought of Madge often. Wondered how the woman was.
Better the devil you know
, she'd advised. A convict knew better than her.

‘Well, don't dawdle, girl. It's gone daylight already and them will be wanting their tea and honey. Them natives will have to go searching for more. Nearly out of it, we are. I don't touch it. Scoop it out with their bare hands I reckon, but the Missus loves it. Go on then, get the fire good and hot.'

‘Do you want me to warm the –'

Mary Horton let out a gaseous explosion, the noise of which matched the putrid stench. ‘I don't want you to do nothing for nobody excepting what I tell you. Do that and then go down and pick some more of those wild peaches near the creek. I've bread to warm and a rabbit to roast.'

Fine, Kate thought, you cranky old woman. Lacing her shoes, Kate tied a length of twine around one flapping sole and slipped the pistol and shot into her skirt pocket. Outside, one of the men was unloading lengths of timber and stacking them in a pile at the rear of the Hardys' dwelling. Additions to the homestead were
in the process of being pegged out, although from what Sophie revealed, the building of the ‘gracious homestead' – the girl's words not hers – was dependent on Mr Southerland's availability, for Mr Hardy was loath to start the project himself without the overseer's knowledge regarding the erection of joints, trusses and ceilings.

The woodpile was getting low. Soon they'd be calling on the men to drag a new log through the hole in the kitchen wall and into the hearth, but in the meantime there was a handful of split timber remaining. Cradling two pieces, Kate used her elbow to lift the latch and entered the cook's domain. It was smoky, dark and hot. Ducking her head beneath the bags that were suspended from the ceiling to keep ants from the sugar and the like, Kate quickly poked the lengths of timber into place on top of the smouldering log, enticing the glowing embers by blowing softly until the flames caught. The soot-black kettle was already hot but she wedged it closer to the heat and selected a tin pannikin from the shelf.

‘Slept in, I did,' the cook announced grumpily behind her. ‘Half the day's gone. I told you to wake me up, girl. Why, the birds are out and the sun's near up.' Sitting a blackened cast-iron pot on the table, she lifted the lid and poked the rabbit carcass that had been left to soak overnight in salt and water. The animal was scraggly and with Mr Hardy doubtful that it would survive the winter, it had been placed on the menu. ‘That'll do.'

Quite often the four women were left alone while the men camped out for weeks on end, tending to the business of farming. But Mr Hardy and the overseer were home at the moment, which made Kate and the cook busy with cooking and washing, but their presence also left them feeling safer.

‘If I be home in England, we would have had the day off, we would.' The cook scratched a mark on the wall beside rows of similar scratches. ‘I'm sure it's May. When I was a girl I danced around the May Pole, had ribbons in me hair and all. 'Course
there's not much need for a pole here. Everything's backwards. We ain't heading towards summer but leaving her behind, and thank heavens for that.'

‘I'll fetch the fruit, then water the orchard and tend the vegetable garden.' Kate couldn't wait to have some time to herself.

‘Don't you wander off. There's them sheets to be washed in the copper.'

Outside the stuffy kitchen, dawn turned the sky white. Kate took a gulp of the chill air and steeled herself mentally for the day ahead. The land seemed caught between the vast shadows of night and the endless haze of a too bright sky. It was difficult not to feel as if she'd been tossed into a great void. The country stretched forever in all directions, across tree-spotted hills and shadowy valleys, and somewhere out there other settlers were trying to carve a place for themselves and their families with their bare hands. It was a mighty undertaking, and almost presumptuous to think that the untameable could be brought to heel. In Kate's mind if ever there was a place that should be left alone, it was here.

A horse whinnied. Down in the valley a line of moving shapes travelled towards the huts on the hill. Kate watched fascinated and scared, ready to let out a warning cry as she'd been told to do. The shapes grew legs and arms. The natives carried spears. The warriors walked at a brisk pace across the surface of the land and kept on moving to the east. Kate let out a breath. White men had been murdered last year and mounted police had chased the perpetrators down after Christmas. Mr Southerland said it was a massacre. Mr Hardy announced it to be a pleasing result.

From inside the kitchen came the clang of pots and pans. Mary Horton cursed in a sailor's tongue. The yellow dog barked in response to the ruckus, ambling into view to urinate in the dirt.

‘Mama, don't!'

Young Sophie was awake, her irritated voice clear and loud. The door to the Hardys' hut squeaked open. Instead of the listless child
who'd grown troublesome over summer, her father appeared on the verandah. Sliding the lid across one of the rainwater barrels, Kate dipped the pannikin into the bark-tinted liquid and drank thirstily.

‘Is my tea ready?' Mr Hardy was smoking on the verandah as she passed, basket in hand. ‘I told Cook I wanted it early today, before they arrived.'

‘It'll be served directly, Mr Hardy.'
They
were the Aboriginals. Most mornings they came a little after dawn to sit cross-legged in the dirt opposite the verandah.

‘Ridiculous, a man never has a moment's peace.'

The cook arrived, mumbling apologies. Heaving herself up the short height to the verandah, she passed her employer a pannikin of hot black tea and then from a basket began to set the table, white tablecloth, matching napkins and assorted cutlery. There were only three sets of tableware and Mrs Horton guarded the implements with her life.

‘And Mrs Hardy is not feeling her best. She'd like to take a bath. You will see to it that there's water by mid-morning, Kate.'

Kate assured him that she would and continued walking downhill towards the creek. To her left was the valley and through the trees a five-acre field was being hoed by Mr Callahan. He worked there every day, sometimes with another man, sometimes alone. In the preceding months he'd burnt off timber to turn ashes into rich potash, and then hoed the ground thoroughly. When grass and weeds grew these were dug in as well so that the sod became rich with plant matter. Soon it would be time to sow the wheat. There was a hand-made plough sitting out on the flat, ready to be pulled by bullocks for this very purpose.

The young orchard struggled. The saplings were still alive but it was left to Kate to bucket water onto them; a chore that had become a welcome undertaking. Out here no-one told her what to do. Beyond the bleakness of the huts on the side of the hill, the land fanned out gently. Tussocky grass matted the earth, growing
knee-high in places. Her palm brushed the tips of the pasture, her footfall disturbing small brown ground-birds who fluttered away to land nearby.

Back on the hill the regular audience were arriving in twos and threes. Mrs Hardy had made this first meal of the day with her daughter somewhat of a spectacle, and this morning there was a half-circle of native women and children sitting down to watch them. The Hardy women dined and chatted together as if they were quite alone, silver cutlery clattering, warm bread served wrapped in a white napkin, and a pot of wild honey. A silver teapot with sage green tea cups and saucers completed the table. From a distance it was quite a sight. The poorly built hut, mother and child sipping tea as if they were in a breakfast room with a crumb cloth beneath their feet, and the row of natives, silently watching.

The fruit the cook wanted grew on a small tree near the creek. Kate turned from the crooked hut on the hill and headed northwards. The pale green leaves and reddish fruit were easy to spot among the shrubs and trees, and she headed directly to the plant and began to pluck a quantity of the ripe berries, placing them in the small basket. With luck she could dip her feet in the creek and massage her aching calves before returning to the kitchen. Kate ate as she worked, nibbling at the white tart flesh.

‘You eat plenty.'

Kate started at the voice. A group of young women and children stood nearby, giggling. She hadn't heard them approach and it wasn't the first time they'd snuck up on her. It was a trait Kate would never get used to. Most of the group were naked, although some of the women were wearing skin cloaks against the morning chill. Wiping her mouth, Kate checked the amount of fruit already picked. The tree was nearly bare. The basket only half-full. The girl was right – Kate had consumed more than she'd realised.

‘Hungry?'

The girl who spoke was named Sally. Slender, with a smile that could make a person grin, Kate knew she was George Southerland's woman. Sally wore the beaded necklace that he'd given her on the day of their arrival at the farm. Kate noticed the swell of her stomach. She was with child. ‘Do you want something?' Kate asked cautiously. Although these women were part of the tribe that lived on the farm, Kate remained wary of striking up any form of friendship with them. The murder of the girl at the Kable property and her own experience still haunted; only the weight of the pistol comforted her.

The girl crinkled her nose. ‘Hello.'

‘Hello.'

‘You come dig with us.' It wasn't a question, more a matter of fact.

‘Dig what?'

The women carried sturdy sticks with a pointed end.

Sally walked a few feet away to a clump of low-growing plants with oval leaves. Positioning the stick, she dug the plant out in three quick movements. It had a large pale tap-root. ‘Wudhugaa.'

‘Wudhugaa,' Kate repeated, her efforts drawing more giggles. ‘Do you eat this?'

‘Eat, cook. You come dig?'

It was not the first time Kate had been approached to join them. She lifted the basket. ‘I can't. I have to leave.'

‘You not be friend?' Sally appeared disappointed. The other women turned away and muttered as if they expected a refusal. They moved in the direction of the creek, their children running ahead, laughing and calling to each other. ‘This our home too,' Sally added quietly.