The Cedar Tree

by Nicole Alexander

  Luck was with them, as the tree crowned the side of a hill. There were only two ways down: a straight fall to the bush below or a gentle slope that led to the bottom. If they managed to shoot the log along the concave track they’d carved into the soil, there was a chance the great tree would follow the safer path to the base of the hill. Brandon reckoned the top of the fallen tree would be just short of the cliff’s edge when it fell.

  Sean’s hand sought balance against the scaly bark. ‘It won’t work, you know. And if it doesn’t we’ll never be able to clear a road to get the bullock team up here.’

  ‘We can saw planks out of it,’ said Brandon. ‘And then snig them down.’

  ‘Stubborn. You’ve always been stubborn.’ Sean gave a grunt, smacking his hand against the tree’s girth. ‘Are you sure this is the narrowest point?’

  ‘It’s about ten feet in circumference. A good twenty feet less than the bottom of her. Ready?’ Brandon swung the axe, making the first undercut on the side the tree would fall, the impact reverberating through his arm and shoulder and down his spine. Balancing on the opposite side of the tree, Sean followed immediately, then Brandon swung again, and soon the area echoed with the rhythmic thwack of iron on cedar. Woodchips flew outwards and the air grew thick with the strong woody fragrance. They kept at it until the cut was deep and wide. Big enough for a man to lie in. Then, having confirmed the direction in which the tree was to fall, they began cutting on the opposite face of the axed trunk.

  ‘You think this’ll be the end of our cedar days?’ asked Sean when they stopped for a rest.

  Brandon immediately thought of Maggie, left behind in town. ‘Yes.’

  Sean pulled the axe clean of the cut and stopped. ‘A person shouldn’t stay in one place,’ he said. ‘That suggests a man’s comfortable, and no good can come of that. I want to keep moving as we have the past three years. I don’t want land or that life again. Not when a man can simply cut a tree and be done with blight and starvation.’

  Since leaving their old life in Ireland Sean had come to embrace their wandering to the point where Brandon knew he grew restless after a week or so in one place. It was as if he feared putting down roots, wary that they may well be dug up again.

  They were young men – Brandon seventeen years old, Sean twenty – and they only had each other. And Maggie. She was the reason Brandon wanted to stop roaming. His stepsister needed a proper home and he’d made a promise to their father that he would care for her. Not that his oath had come to much yet.

  ‘We have to think of Maggie. It’s not fair dumping her in the nearest village for months on end while we’re cutting.’ Brandon swung his axe. He was only being partially honest. It pained him every time he said goodbye to her, and for a long time his dreams had been consumed with worry for her safety. Quite simply, he missed her.

  ‘She’s always got extra coin, should she need it. Besides, Maggie’s nearing sixteen. Your little stepsister is almost a full-grown woman and pretty soon she won’t be needing either of us.’ Sean grunted as he followed with a rapid axe strike.

  ‘Yes she will,’ said Brandon.

  ‘You worry about her too much.’ Sean tugged the axe-head from the tree. ‘We should have stayed with Hackett’s men. It’s easier in a team.’

  ‘They’re troublemakers, with nothing to show for their work at the end of a season,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Perhaps, but they’re Irish and a people should stay close together.’

  When the back cut was finally completed, the tree gave a fierce crack. The men dropped their axes to the ground and, as the ancient cedar began to topple, they quickly clambered downwards, springing from board to board like monkeys until they reached the large buttressing roots and jumped to the earth. The decapitated tree crashed to the ground, destroying lesser timbers, scaring birds and animals, until it landed with a shudder on the floor of the forest, the crown just shy of the cliff’s edge.

  Brandon and Sean lay next to each other as their lungs steadied. They’d jumped the last six feet and were sprawled on the ground, each silently hoping for the felled tree to gather momentum and plough a course over the cliff.

  The gap in the canopy spilt sunlight onto their forest-pale faces and sweaty, bare torsos – Brandon, dark-haired and brawny, his body toned by axe and saw so that he looked as old as, if not older than, his cousin, and Sean, red-headed, and twice Brandon’s size. When it came to his cousin, Brandon ignored what others could not: the bulky frame and ginger hair, the square face that matched the brutish edge that his words and deeds possessed.

  Next to him, his cousin scratched at the mosquito bites that covered their bodies from time spent by the river.

  ‘And now we’ve cut it,’ said Sean, ‘how do you really think we’re going to get it out of here?’

  There was a loud snap. Then a fracturing noise echoed about them as the great trunk began to slide. Freed from its woody anchor, it rushed forwards, down the manmade corridor of cleared scrub, before veering sharply to the left and shooting out in the wrong direction over the top of the cliff.

  They scrambled to their feet and trailed the airborne length of timber at a run, bracing their descent on the surrounding trees until they were standing on the edge of the precipice. The momentum of the timber had speared it away from the grooved path and the gentle slope beneath. It landed at the base of the cliff, accompanied by a thundering sound and a scattering of birds.

  ‘That noise would have woken the dead!’ cried Sean.

  Below the overhang, the valley spread out. A river twisted through the cleared country of settlers where crops and grazing cattle made a pretty patchwork. Beyond it all lay distant hills.

  ‘Well, it’s not a fish until it’s on the bank,’ said Sean sagely. ‘Now can we go back to camp?’

  Apart from the bush where the cedar had landed, the country fanning out from the base of the hill had been clear-felled. It would be an easy enough spot to access. Brandon turned to Sean.

  ‘No,’ said Sean, as if he were privy to his cousin’s thoughts. ‘It will take us days to get to that damn tree. I say we head downhill the way we came, back to our camp and the bullocks. It’ll be pitch-black by the time we reach it tonight. Tomorrow we’ll start making our way to the village and see if we can’t find a bit of timber to cut so we don’t return empty-handed.’

  Brandon scratched at the slight stubble on his chin.

  ‘That’s settler’s country,’ Sean continued. ‘They’ll run us off the place if we’re caught. Our four-pound licence fee doesn’t mean we can plunder Crown land, land leased to the likes of them.’

  ‘But we’re not thieving anything,’ said Brandon. ‘It wasn’t cut on their property. And do you really want to have nothing to show for a week’s work?’

  Sean shook his head. ‘It’s probably splintered. Ruined. Yes, it’ll be ruined.’

  Brandon studied the drop to the ground below. ‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘And what if it’s not?’

  Chapter 12

  After they left their camp, it took a whole week to journey out of the forest. The woodlands were dark until 7 am and already becoming gloomy again by four in the afternoon. They followed a rutted track that led back to the waterway, the heat and mugginess and the short travelling days proving arduous for man and bullock alike. Brandon watched for the first sign of the creamy-flowered white booyong tree, an avenue of their bolstering roots marking the direction to the waterway. From there, a small grove of white beech told them they were a quarter-mile from the river and their waiting pile of axe-branded logs. He’d be pleased to be on a better road. The bullocks were slow and the slide they were hitched to, a low platform with deep sides and skids, moved steadily. It was a poorly built contraption, won by Sean during a night of gambling, although, as they spent a portion of every week repairing it, Brandon knew the loser had come out far better off. It was pulled by four mangy paired and yoked bullocks, who were well past their prime but still managed to haul a reasonable load when requi
red.

  They reached the hoard of timber they’d cut during the season and re-counted their haul. They hoped that the buyer, Malcolm Jack, was honest in his dealings with them. Brandon and Sean couldn’t afford to sit idly waiting for rain and a summer flood to float their haul downstream. They were relying on Jack to do that. He knew where their timber was located and their logs would be rolled into the river with others when the time came to be carried on the freshening waters to the village of Wirra.

  They saw no other camps or people as they continued their journey, but they knew that tucked within the trees were isolated sites where whole families resided year after year while the menfolk felled trees and stockpiled logs. It was strange to think of these small societies, sprung up amidst bracken ferns and fibrous creepers. Hidden from the world. Places where babies were born in canvas tents and children spent their early years rarely seeing the sun.

  In time, they reached the worn tracks of previous cedar-getters’ wagons and followed the well-defined route that hugged the river. It was an old-man river, its age evident from the stretch of floodplains that eased from its eroded banks. The width of the watercourse dazzled their eyes. It appeared motionless. Only a length of driftwood betrayed the current, which moved steadily out to sea. The river projected a magnetic beauty. River gums nestled close to the water’s edge, within which the small azure body of a bird captured their attention. With its black bill and orange throat and belly it was a pretty sight flitting among the trees.

  Their proposed destination – the cedar tree that had crashed to the base of the hill – soon led them away from the calm waters and the laughter of kookaburras. Skirting reedy swamps they reached countryside that had been heavily cleared, where tree stumps stuck out from the ground like ragged tombstones. Any valuable timber had undoubtedly been sold; the remainder used to build dwellings or yards or left to rot where it had been axed to the ground so that crops and grasses could grow. The land seemed desolate, empty, as if the heart had been cut out of it. There were cattle of course, for any settler of means was supplementing their income with the returns from the sale of meat, tallow and hides, however it was money from the sale of cedar that had made the area rich.

  ‘Not a pretty sight,’ said Sean, taking in the countryside.

  His cousin rarely shared any depth of thought. Brandon knew they’d been away from company for too long. It could make a man melancholy, the killing of things. Chopping down trees, week after week, month after month. Yet knowing their worth made it impossible to stop. It was like a fever. The search. The exhilaration of finding a stand of cedar intact and ready for the taking.

  Sean walked on the lead bullock’s near side, a plaited whip resting over a muscled shoulder. ‘Do you think they’re dead? Our fathers?’

  How was he to reply? ‘Do you?’

  ‘I wonder what’s happened. I wonder who else left. If they came here or to America.’

  They’d learnt last year that Brandon’s half-brothers Marcus and Michael had emigrated to America using the money Brandon had sent home. It was likely that other members of their families had emigrated as well, however their frequent letter-writing from Australia had never been responded to with the same commitment. Only their fathers stayed in contact. Sean and Brandon left forwarding addresses at each town near to where they worked and it was not unusual for ten months to pass before mail found them. However neither father had replied to their scribblings for over a year. The silence that drifted from the other side of the world was now more terrible than the distance that separated them.

  ‘If something’s happened, wouldn’t we be told?’ asked Sean.

  ‘Maybe. It depends who’s left over there. Maybe they’ve all gone.’

  ‘Well I’m not sending any more money until we know what’s what,’ said Sean.

  Brandon hoped that desperation for their funds would lead to someone making contact, but perhaps there were now others living abroad that could be depended on. Honest family members whose goodness was reliable and preferable. Cousins and half-siblings who’d not caused the O’Riain families to be evicted from their small tenant farms, forcing them to live in squalor on the edge of the village.

  Sean ran a hand along the closest bullock’s hide, the animal’s steady progress marked by sprays of dust that shot out from beneath its hoofs. ‘It’s never seeing them again. That’s the cut. We should have gone to America,’ he continued.

  ‘The day we arrived at the docks there wasn’t much choice,’ replied Brandon.

  ‘In America they’ve formed a Fenian Brotherhood. They’re issuing bonds to raise money for arms. Irish immigrants are buying them in their hundreds and thousands. I’ve told you that before.’

  Damn Hackett and his team of cedar-getters. That’s where Sean’s knowledge came from. They were adept at rousing Fenian sentiment after a vat of rum had been consumed.

  Brandon kept pace with the rhythmic gait of the bullocks, the axes, saws, hoes and hammers clanging against each other in the slide. It was hard to begin again when Sean was continually dredging up the bitterness that should have stayed buried in Ireland.

  ‘There’s a fight to be had and maybe it can only be won in a new land,’ said Sean.

  Brandon hesitated. ‘You’re not talking about America now, are you?’

  ‘No. I’m not.’

  Brandon was overcome by a fierce desire to tell Sean to stop talking nonsense, however as his cousin never uttered a word that he did not believe in with all his heart, he knew he had to counter his fervour with a quieter approach. It was a method that he’d adopted over time, one that gradually allowed him to take the lead on many issues, when based on age alone that right should have been Sean’s.

  ‘I don’t want to carry the troubles of the past into the present.’

  Sean raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s too late for that. The troubles came with us.’

  The two riders appeared from the trees that marked the course of the river. It was the movement in the still of the late afternoon that attracted Brandon’s attention; the undulation of nuggety brown against faded green as the riders disappeared into the tangled bush and then reappeared to weave in and out of the timber. The action noiseless. The land a canvas to their travels.

  ‘Look.’ Sean pointed.

  ‘I see them.’

  As they observed the riders, one of them suddenly moved and the crack of a whip carried through the air. A flock of parrots rose skywards from the river timber, startled by the sound. The wave of crimson and blue skirted the river and then flew towards the bullock team. The riders galloped into open country in their direction, following the birds.

  ‘They’re in our path,’ said Sean.

  ‘They’ll question us. Best to keep moving,’ advised Brandon.

  The riders came to a halt and dismounted.

  ‘It’s women,’ said Sean after a moment. ‘We’re in luck.’

  It was true. Their slender frames and long, full skirts were visible now. One of the women held a large bird on her extended hand. She considered the approaching men and then started walking through the grasses. When she stopped again, she removed a hood from the bird’s head. It lifted into the air, soaring towards the flock of parrots. Brandon tipped his head to follow the raptor’s progress. The parrots winged northwards as the hunter gained height, its span of wings dark compared to the pale sky. On reaching the upper air currents, it appeared more intent on freedom than the feast that fled below. Then, without warning, the raptor changed direction. A single parrot tailed the fleeing mass. The hunter took a curved path towards its prey. Quickly closing the distance, it folded its wings, dived, and struck the smaller bird with its claws. With its catch secured, it flew back towards the women on the ground.

  The bird landed as Sean yelled out, ‘Woo!’ to halt the team. The bullocks slowly came to a stop, not far from where the women stood.

  The taller of the two wore a hunting suit of deep purple. It was a pared-down version of the full crinoline skirts f
avoured by the wealthy in Sydney, a necessity, Brandon supposed, if a woman was to ride a horse. She held up a heavily gloved hand but barely took notice of them, so engrossed was she by the slate-blue falcon. Having landed in the grass, it was beginning to dismember the crimson parrot.

  Brandon ignored the young woman’s arrogant gesture and walked forwards. It was a long time since he’d witnessed falconry. Mr Macklin had been partial to the sport, using his birds to supplement his larder. But hunting for no good reason other than for the sake of a kill made it a sport Brandon could never comprehend. Next to him, the woman’s companion gripped the reins of their horses. She glanced at Brandon and then back to her mistress, avoiding the bloody scene at her feet.

  He tried to hide his disgust at the killing. There were scratches on the gloved woman’s cheek, fresh enough to be glossy with blood. It appeared the bird needed more taming. Its owner was unperturbed by her injury. She was tall, similar to him in age, with eyes too widely spaced and a thin nose, but she was unusual-looking enough to be more than attractive. As the falcon began pecking out the parrot’s entrails, she finally acknowledged him.

  ‘They rarely survive Glanville’s claws but this little one needed a bite through the spine on landing. Tenacious, don’t you think?’ Her servant passed her a lace-edged handkerchief, and she dabbed at the scratches on her cheek. ‘Who are you?’ The woman spoke in a clipped English accent.

  ‘We were cutting cedar. Up there.’ Brandon pointed to the hill.

  ‘Did I ask your profession? I know you live in the forests. You’re white as ghosts. Who are you?’ she said.

  ‘Brandon and Sean O’Riain,’ explained Brandon.