The Cedar Tree

by Nicole Alexander

  ‘Mr Truby offered me a job,’ explained Brandon.

  ‘Did he now?’ the man asked, sharing a grin with the driver, who barely took his watchful gaze from the road. ‘You cutting down them trees of his so he can build another palace on top of the one he’s already got?’

  ‘Probably,’ admitted Brandon. He was beginning to wonder if the breadth of the man’s curiosity would eventually match the distance to town.

  ‘Don’t feed the pigeons,’ the man said. ‘It took me the better part of the day to rub the shit off that statue and clean up the mess Glanville made. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Well then, lad. No point wearing out more leather on them boots of yours. Get up.’

  Relieved, Brandon tossed the axe into the moving cart and then leapt up to sit among the bags of grain.

  ‘I’m Peter and this is Pat. Where are you from?’ The man tipped his cap back to reveal a shining bald pate.

  ‘Tipperary,’ replied Brandon.

  ‘You’ll be wanting to come tonight, then,’ Peter continued. ‘There’s a meeting down at the river, behind the sawmill.’

  ‘A meeting?’

  ‘The Brotherhood. There’s news that needs to be shared. You are with us?’ asked Peter more pointedly.

  ‘Of course,’ said Brandon, not wanting to lose his ride but also conscious of falling in or out with the wrong people. He settled back into the lumpy sacks. He wasn’t much interested in attending any gatherings. But he’d said the right words and Peter and Pat exchanged complicit nods, assured of their passenger’s allegiance.

  ‘What’s Mr Truby like to work for?’ asked Brandon to change the subject.

  ‘He came out here near thirty years ago,’ said Peter over his shoulder. ‘Just rode in like the squatters do and selected his run. Been here ever since. Overlanded his cattle from down south and then set about clearing country and planting his crops. He was already rich but he added to his fortune with cedar. ’Course, if he runs out of money he can cut up his house and sell it. Be worth a fortune.’ He gave a deep chuckle, impressed by his humour.

  ‘You worked for him long?’

  ‘Long enough. He’s good for an Englishman. His wife died with not a child to show for the union. The girl is his niece. Haughty to some, friendly to others. He took her on near ten years ago after her parents died. No fortune, but she’ll be wealthy when they carry Mr Truby out of his house in a cedar box. How long you been here for, then?’

  ‘We arrived nearly three years ago,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Half of Ireland must be deserted by now. Have you folk left over there?’ asked Peter.

  ‘I don’t know. We haven’t heard anything for nearly a year.’

  ‘Best you make the most of things then, lad. Nothing worse than pondering on what’s become of them, not when there’s a living needed to be made. So when are you starting with Truby?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’m yet to discuss it with my cousin and we’ve logs to be floated downriver and sold,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Then we better get you to town. It’s been raining up in the hills since yesterday.’

  Brandon thought of Sean’s itchy feet and smiled.

  Chapter 22

  The dray turned into the main street of the village at midday. On Brandon’s left were the cool, clear depths where the waters of the Richmond and Wilson Rivers met. An iron paddle-steamer was docked at the wharf, its red funnel emitting a wisp of dark smoke, and towards it travelled a flat-bottomed tug towing a raft of pine logs. Fishing boats and smaller passenger craft ferrying people to opposite sides of the river manoeuvred quickly out of the tug’s way, a man cooeeing to another as they passed. Upstream was the shipyard and the provisions store Brandon and Sean sometimes frequented while ahead, a scatter of indiscriminately built timber structures fronted the wide road, which breasted the riverbank with its grassy soil and scattered trees.

  Brandon thanked Peter and Pat and, axe in hand, jumped clear of the cart. Moving out of the path of a man on horseback, he stopped outside a supplies store. It was a new addition since his last visit and he briefly admired the window display of gleaming axes with the favoured hickory handles, before wondering where to begin searching for his stepsister. He was more than looking forward to seeing Maggie again. It had been eight months since they’d last seen each other, on the day he and Sean departed for the Big Scrub. He’d felt desolate deserting her and she’d been unable to hide her tears. He looked to the left and then right and started walking towards the far end of the street to the house where Maggie boarded, intent on enquiring where she might be.

  The road was busy with riders and walkers. A Chinese man displaying vegetables in a barrow on the riverside called to Brandon as he passed, offering beans and potatoes at a very good price. Brandon crossed the road.

  ‘I know you,’ he said to the seller. ‘You sold my cousin and me rotten potatoes. A whole bag. Rotten. What do you think a man is meant to live on when he’s in the forest?’

  ‘Not me. I sell very good vegetables. Very good. You see?’ The man held out a potato. Brandon knocked it from his hand.

  ‘Managed to drag yourself away from your blessed cedar, have you?’

  Brandon turned and stared at the young woman who’d called out to him. She was carrying two baskets and crossing the street away from him.

  ‘Maggie!’ Brandon exclaimed. His memory of the girl he’d last seen was obliterated by this woman, who might well skin a rabbit merely by the sharpness of her expression. She’d taken on the proportions of her mother, Cait. Everything was average about her. Height and weight. Appearance. Except for her chestnut hair, and those eyes. They were the deepest brown. The colour of the Sargasso Sea. He held up a warning finger at the vegetable seller and was then forced to run at a fair clip to reach her side.

  ‘Maggie?’

  ‘Don’t talk to me all friendly like,’ she replied without even a glance in his direction, the baskets swinging violently as she moved. ‘It’s eight months since I last saw you and Sean. Eight months. “Don’t worry,” you said to me when we were running for our very lives in Tipperary. “Don’t fret none,” you told me when we were on the ship. “I promise I’ll get us a home when we arrive,” you said.’ She looked about them, drawing in the small village. ‘Plenty of Irish girls have emigrated to New South Wales but few have been silly enough to go to the bush. I should have listened to them girls I met in Sydney. I should have sure-footed it straight to the Immigration Depot. Got my own employment. Found a nice job with a kind family. Instead, I’m here. Still waiting. Deigning to be graced with a visit from you and Sean.’ She dropped the food-laden baskets, bread and carrots spilling in the dirt, and held out her palms. ‘I’ve more calluses and blisters than when I was digging potatoes at home.’ There were tears in her eyes.

  ‘Maggie, what’s the matter?’

  She was sobbing now. Brandon tried to take her in his arms, as he had during her frightened nights in the hull of the groaning ship, however she was quick to use the heel of her palm to push him away.

  ‘I hate you! I want to go home,’ she yelled.

  ‘We can’t go home,’ said Brandon.

  She struck out at his chest. ‘That’s because of you. You and Sean.’

  There was hurt on her face, but also intense anger. He wasn’t prepared for that. For her unhappiness. He was doing his best. Had been doing his best since their arrival in New South Wales. Within days of coming ashore he’d heard of the money that could be made from felling cedars. So he and Sean joined the rush northwards to where trees were said to still be plentiful, signing up with Brian Hackett, who needed more men to help fill his contracts. The Richmond Valley was now home. And to Brandon it was as good a place as any to stop.

  ‘At some stage we would have been forced to leave Ireland, Maggie. You know that. Most of the people we knew have probably emigrated by now.’

  ‘I don’t know nothing. I only know what happened to me and now I’m he
re. In this place.’ The creases around the corners of her mouth were pulling downwards.

  ‘And if you’d stayed in Ireland,’ he asked her, ‘what then? Father couldn’t afford to keep feeding us all. You would have eventually become a labourer or perhaps have been forced to go to one of the bigger cities to find work. It was either that or the church, for most of the younger men were sure to emigrate if they hadn’t already.’

  They were standing next to a low-slung timber building that offered bed and board for travellers. There was talk that the owners sold sly grog and, with no permanent police stationed in the village, it was highly likely. A sign promised entertainments on Sunday afternoon following the running of a regatta.

  ‘We should go somewhere else to talk,’ suggested Brandon.

  Maggie gave a huff and leant down to gather up the spilt food.

  Brandon watched her quick, deft movements. The sun drew out the red-gold highlights of her dark hair, her plait swinging across her shoulder. There was a patch of perspiration clinging to the material of her brown dress and on one arm the stitching was beginning to loosen. His stepsister was nearly sixteen. All her growing up had been done in his absence. Among strangers. While he’d been scaling trees, trying to provide a future for them, Maggie had gone from scared child to angry young woman and he’d only seen glimpses of the transformation. He was sorry for that. For not being there for her, however everything he’d undertaken had been done with Maggie in mind.

  ‘Have you heard from Father?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ She stopped arranging the vegetables in the basket and looked up at him. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Not a word.’ He hardened his tone when he saw the shine in her eyes. ‘There’s no point thinking about them.’ Their family had splintered like wood chips.

  ‘He’s dead then.’ She looked like she was going to cry again.

  Brandon took one of the baskets from her and, draping an arm about her shoulders, led her towards the river. ‘We don’t know that. He could have emigrated to America with the others,’ he told her, although he wondered if he was trying to appease not only Maggie’s concerns but his own as well. ‘Come on.’

  He escorted her across the street through a throng of raggedly dressed axemen who were making their way to the travellers’ stop, and then began walking along the river in the direction of the wharf. He picked up a pebble and tossed it across the water, the stone skipping three times before sinking. They stopped and stood at the canal’s edge, where the lap of liquid against earth drew their gaze, the patterning of the sand changing with each gentle wash that eased along the bank. The mottled dark-green and gold of a large cod swam past, oblivious to their presence, while on the far bank two women strolled, their bobbing parasols like great white birds spreading their wings in flight. They walked a little further in silence and then Maggie sat down with a habitual sigh to stare at the vessel moored at the end of the wharf.

  ‘Another fine captain,’ muttered Brandon.

  ‘There’s plenty that come unstuck on the sandbars at the mouth of the river,’ replied Maggie, sounding like a wizened seaman.

  Timber was being winched onboard by a crane from the wharf; long, thick lengths swinging across men and water to be stacked on the deck. Brandon drew his gaze from the action and poked at one of the baskets. ‘Who’s this for?’

  ‘The Minchins raised the cost of their lodgings so now I run errands to make up the difference, as well as doing the washing for three families.’ Maggie spread her hands, examining the reddened knuckles. ‘I was cleaning two houses, but I lost them jobs. Nothing I did was good enough for the people that lived there. They said I couldn’t clean. That I wasn’t c-capable. But I know,’ she jabbed at her own chest, ‘that it’s because I’m Irish Catholic.’ She pointed down the road. ‘People say things weren’t so bad before they built that church. That they worshipped under an old fig tree then. But now there’s more of them than us.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Brandon.

  ‘Them Presbyterians,’ said Maggie. ‘That’s who I was cleaning for.’

  ‘Sometimes people prefer to stick with their own kind.’

  ‘But you told me it wouldn’t be like this. That our life here was sure to be better and we’d be accepted,’ complained Maggie, jiggling one of the baskets in her lap. ‘Some of them Presbyterians are real nice but others, especially the ones close to my own age, why they cross the street rather than walk on the same side as me.’

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve had it so hard, Maggie,’ said Brandon.

  Her chin lifted. ‘And what about you? Still living in that ferny glen of yours? Making your fortune with your red-gold wood?’

  ‘You should see it, Maggie. The trees are the tallest you can imagine and when you’re high up among the branches it’s like you’re on top of the world.’

  She leant back on her hands. ‘And what do you get for being on the top of the world, Brandon? A fine view or a lungful of cool air. Either way it’s of no benefit to me, when I make fourteen pound a year and have but a handful of shillings to show at the end of it.’

  ‘Listen, Maggie, I’ve money now. You know I’ve been saving.’

  Her brown eyes were mistrustful. ‘I’ve seen no proof of it.’

  Brandon untied the leather strips holding the pieces of rawhide to his boots and then removed them. Both shoes had holes in the bottoms, and the hide coverings prevented further wear, and hopefully the loss of the pound notes, which he pulled free, fanning for his stepsister’s benefit.

  Maggie reached for the money but Brandon drew it free of her grasp. She sulked a little and then laughed.

  ‘How much?’ she asked, her voice adopting the hushed tones employed in confession.

  ‘Close to fifty pounds since we stepped ashore, Maggie. I’ve spent nothing except what’s needed to survive. Axe-heads, flour, sugar and tea,’ he told her. ‘And the money I sent home.’

  ‘Where is the rest of it?’ she asked.

  ‘Sewn into the waistband of my trousers.’ He patted the moleskin trousers he wore and then replaced the pound notes and then his boots, finally securing the rawhide with the leather thonging. ‘I want to buy a few acres.’ He waited for a response, the hope of a positive answer from his stepsister taking on an importance he’d not anticipated.

  Maggie sorted through the basket and absently began chewing on a carrot. ‘So you’re not going to be a cedar-getter forever.’

  ‘No. There’s a man called Mr Truby fifteen mile from here who needs cedar cut. There could be a job there afterwards. Something permanent. You might be able to live there too if it all works out.’ He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Really?’ said Maggie, the beginnings of happiness playing across her mouth.

  ‘You know that’s what I want. For us to be together.’

  ‘Do you know what I’d like? A new dress, nut brown. Like the colour of the Sargasso Sea. You remember that, don’t you, Brandon? When we got caught in that mighty storm and we were blown far off course. We stayed put for weeks and talked about better times coming. Days of wine and roses.’

  ‘And they will come.’ The sun was suddenly brighter with her smiles. Brandon walked to the water’s edge, his boots sinking into the soft sand, then he pivoted on his heel to face her. ‘Mr Truby agreed to teach me how to ride. You can’t get anywhere in this country without a horse.’

  ‘A horse!’ screeched Maggie. As usual, she was quick to lose her happy mood. ‘I’m rubbing the flesh off my knuckles and you want a bloody horse?’ She tossed the partially eaten carrot into the river.

  ‘I’m not walking everywhere the rest of my life,’ said Brandon evenly, ‘and in the future I don’t expect you to either. Anyway, if I can ride a horse Mr Truby might offer me a proper job. I might be a stockman or a boundary rider. And, as I said, when the time’s right, I’ll buy a few acres.’ He squatted in front of her. ‘Don’t you want that, Maggie? We’d have a home to come back to at the end of the da
y. You and me. And Sean. Just like I promised.’ He wanted her to be happy, and hadn’t realised how important that was to him, but Maggie was staring at him as if he were mad.

  ‘A horse. Our problems started with Mr Macklin and his horse,’ she challenged.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Fine,’ she replied, positioning each basket in the crook of an elbow as she stood. ‘I won’t talk about it, but don’t expect me to forget.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ he called after her.

  ‘I don’t have no money sewn into my trousers, Brandon. Some of us have to work.’

  Brandon watched her go, the baskets swaying in tandem with her hips. She carried the gift of resentment, his Maggie. Waved it about her like a standard-bearer, employing it when least expected so that, although she remained unaware of how he and Sean had saved her from Mr Macklin, she still managed to make him feel responsible for everything that had happened to them, and anything that might confront them in the future.

  Chapter 23

  Brandon swung the axe across his shoulder and headed towards the sawmill. He might not speak of the past, however he often thought of that fateful day. The way Macklin had thrown their religion at him and Sean as if it were a piece of rotten cabbage. He thought of the man falling from his horse. Of the dull thump as his body hit the ground. And Sean’s anger. And now there was Maggie to contend with. Always Maggie. The fine mood he’d arrived in town with was gone. He swore when he trod in a pile of sticky horse dung.

  Ahead, the road was blocked with bullock teams waiting in line to offload at the sawmill or to join the queue headed for the wharf; the jangle of leather and the creak of wheels an undercurrent to talking men and the bellowing of an impatient bullock. Although the road was wide enough for a bullock team of twenty to make a steady U-turn, the street was currently impassable. Men on horseback and those with drays were drawing hard on reins and backing up in an effort to escape the congestion. Brandon skirted the choked thoroughfare by keeping to the edge of the road and headed towards the peaked roof of the sawmill. The lumberyard adjoined the mill and was the place to find news of Sean and the price received for the load of cedar his cousin had delivered. The men working there could also be relied upon to provide reports of where new cedar stands had been opened up or if another navigable waterway had been discovered. History had shown that where there was inland water stemming towards the coast there were also thick belts of red gold.