One of Us Buried

by Johanna Craven

  I chased her out into the hallway, letting the door slam behind me. “Where are you going?”

  “It was a mistake to come here.” She strode towards the stairwell. I grabbed her arm.

  “Please don’t leave.”

  She pulled free of my grasp. “Instead I’m to stay here and listen to you spout lies about my husband?” She shook her head. “I ought to have known you’d do something like this. You turn up at my door, filthy drunk because you lifted your skirts to your lobster, and you’re still doing all you can to show me how much better you’ve done than me.”

  “That’s not what I’m trying to do,” I hissed. “Kate deserves to know the truth.”

  “And that’s what I told her. That Maggie was killed by the savages.”

  I let out my breath. “You can’t truly believe that.”

  Lottie shook her head. “No,” she said. “We’re not going back here, Nell. Not after all this time. We’re not having this conversation again.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment. “You’re right.” I dared to take a step towards her. Dared to press a hand to her forearm. I was relieved when she didn’t pull away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I never meant to look down on you. I just want you to be safe. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  Lottie sighed, but she didn’t walk away. A burst of drunken laughter floated up from the tavern.

  “We look out for each other,” I said. “Isn’t that what you always told me?” I squeezed her wrist. “And it goes both ways, Lottie. I need you to look out for me just as much. You saw the mess I was in tonight. I’m barely stumbling my way through this place.”

  Finally, she looked up to meet my eyes.

  “Please come inside,” I said. “Willie needs to be warm and dry. You know that.” I flashed her a tentative smile. “I’ll not speak of Owen again. I promise.”

  *

  When I woke, I was alone in the bed. Pale dawn light was filtering into the room. Kate was at the window, peering through the curtains. I sat up, frowning. “Where’s Lottie?”

  Kate looked back over her shoulder at me, a thread of dark hair clinging to her lip. “She left.”

  “What do you mean? Where did she go?”

  She shrugged. “I just saw her leave.”

  “When?” I tried to rein in my impatience.

  “Don’t know. But it was still dark. And then I went back to sleep.”

  A knot of panic tightened in my stomach. Had something happened to Willie in the night? Or had Lottie gone to Owen? Was she making another attempt at getting him to take her back?

  If she had, who was I to stop her? Perhaps I had done all I could. Perhaps the time had come for me to accept that. To let her live her own life and make her own mistakes.

  I pushed the thought aside. I knew I would never be able to do such a thing. Owen had wrung Maggie’s throat and left her body at the side of the road. I would fight until I died to stop the same thing happening to Lottie.

  I grabbed my damp dress from the chair and slid it over my head. “Stay here,” I told Kate, fastening the hooks with unsteady fingers. “There’s bread on the shelf. And you can go to the kitchen and make some tea. Charlie will help you.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need to find Lottie.”

  I climbed downstairs and out through the empty tavern, locking the door behind me. In the early morning, the air was cool and still. Empty barrels were stacked up against the wall of the tavern, flies swarming and the smell of stale liquor thick in the air.

  I began to walk. I would go to Owen’s farm first, and if there was no sign of Lottie, I would try at the Rocks. The streets were close to empty, just a few sailors stumbling from the taverns. At least if Lottie was roaming the alleys, I would have a chance of finding her.

  I passed the Dog and Duck tavern, and hurried along the street that wound around past Captain Grant’s house. Kept my eyes firmly on the ground.

  The sound of footsteps made me look up. There was Lottie, rounding the bend, flanked by Owen and Brady. Willie was strapped to her chest. They were striding down the narrow street from the direction of Owen’s farm, heading for Captain Grant’s house. A pistol peeked out of Brady’s fist.

  At once I knew exactly why Lottie had left the tavern in the night. To lead Patrick Owen to the man he despised. To give him a chance at Blackwell without the Rum Corps watching.

  Heat flooded me. Lottie’s betrayal burned under my skin. But it was the fear that caused my heart to race. Fear that Blackwell would never set foot on that ship back to England. That he might die by the rebels’ bullet and never again see his wife.

  I darted down the side of a neighbouring house and stood with my back pressed against the wall. By now, Grant and his family would have left for Van Diemen’s Land. The house would be near empty. If Owen and Brady made it inside, they would have a clear shot at Blackwell, with not a single witness.

  I would not make it to the Grants’ without being seen. But I had to warn Blackwell the men were coming.

  At the sound of my footfalls, Lottie turned to look behind her. Our eyes met. I stared at her, hot with fury. I’d never felt more betrayed. I knew, of course, that at its core, this conflict was about Owen and Blackwell and all that had happened in that cottage after the uprising. But at that moment, it felt intensely personal. Felt as though it were between she and I alone.

  The baby whined against her chest. She turned away, refusing to hold my gaze. And I saw the end. Saw that, for all I had tried to make it otherwise, the two of us were to go no further. Saw that an Irishwoman and a sasaniagh could not build a friendship strong enough to withstand what a woman would do to survive this place.

  Owen turned, catching sight of me, and I raced towards the Grants’ gate, calling Blackwell’s name. A firm hand grabbed my arm, yanking me backwards. Brady clamped his grimy hand over my mouth.

  “Let her go,” said Owen on a laugh. “Let her bring him out here. Save us from breaking in.”

  I shook free of Brady’s grasp and whirled around for something to use as a weapon. I grabbed a scrap of wood lying on the side of the road. I held it out in front of me, backing towards the gate.

  “Get out of the way, Nell,” said Lottie, a waver in her voice.

  I didn’t look at her. She had no say in this.

  I heard a movement in the Grants’ garden behind me, and felt a sudden weakness in my legs. I wished I hadn’t called for Blackwell. For all I ached for him to run and hide, I knew he would come for me, come for the rebels; come to see an end to this thing that had poisoned both he and Owen for the past four years. If Owen got through this gate, there would be shots fired. And someone would die.

  Suddenly Brady was coming at me, wrestling the wood from my hand. He flung it onto the ground. I kicked hard, connecting with his shins. He slammed me back against the gate. My vision swam and pain jolted down my spine.

  “Please, Nell,” I heard Lottie say again, “just get out of the way. Please.” Her voice was tearful.

  Brady came at me again and I drove my knee upward into his groin. I was dimly aware of Owen reaching for the plank of wood. Dimly aware of Lottie shrieking.

  As Brady stumbled backwards, I lurched at him, my fingers grazing the cold metal of the pistol in his hands. I wrenched hard, trying to seize the weapon. A sudden pain to the side of my head and the world around me was gone.

  *

  When I opened my eyes, I was alone. The back of my head was thumping, the ground rough and cold beneath my cheek. I tried to sit, but dizziness was pressing down on me. And then I remembered. Owen. Brady. Lottie.

  Blackwell.

  Everything was quiet. Too quiet.

  A pistol was lying beside my head. And as I looked past it, I saw the Grants’ gate swinging open. Panic overtook me, pushing through the dizziness. I climbed to my feet, swallowing a violent wave of nausea. I swiped at the thin line of blood trickling down the side of my face. I turned. I stepped. And then I s
aw it.

  The body lay just a few feet in front of me, a pool of blood creeping steadily towards my boots.

  I stumbled, terrified to approach.

  I took one step. Then another. Horror welled up inside me.

  I had been expecting a gunshot wound, but the entire figure was a mess of crimson. The limbs were thrashed and misshapen, the face a chaos of slashes. The red coat was blackened with blood, buttons opened to reveal a maze of knife wounds. And there, below the ribs, the entry point of a single ball. I stared at it for several moments, my vision swimming. Flies darted around the wounds. My gaze drifted up to the neat white braiding on the jacket, the stark yellow facings. And to the glimmer of gold poking from the coat pocket. I bent, breathless, and looped a finger around the chain of the pocket watch. It thudded dully into mud, a drop of blood sliding over Sophia’s engraved dedication. I stumbled, landing heavily on my knees, and vomited beside the body.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I stayed on my hands and knees, gulping down my breath. My body began to shake. A desperate sob escaped me.

  And so Patrick Owen had gotten what he wanted, in the most vicious way imaginable. Repayment for that blood-streaked shack in the bush behind Squires’ inn. Repayment for the lives taken in the aftermath of the uprising.

  Had the rebels killed Blackwell inside the house, and then brought his body down into the alley? Laid him here beside me so I might see what my actions had brought about? Or had the lieutenant heard me calling him? Had he come down to help me? Had my own actions led to his death? The thought brought another sob from deep inside me.

  I stared at the blood seeping into the gaps between the cobbles. Tears blurred my vision and I let them slide unhindered from my cheeks. I couldn’t bear to look at Blackwell’s body. And I couldn’t bear to look away.

  I was distantly aware of footsteps coming towards me. Distantly aware of soldiers approaching. Standing over the body. Standing over me.

  I looked down. My floral dress was covered in blood. So were my hands. A pistol on the ground beside me. And as they hauled me to my feet, I couldn’t find a single word.

  My thoughts were blank as they shoved me into the back of the police wagon. We began to rattle along the streets, the wheels sighing as they slid through the remnants of the downpour.

  The journey was a short one, and I wondered distantly why they had felt the need to put me in the carriage. Hands around the tops of my arms, and I was led into a vast sandstone building. Led down a narrow corridor into an empty room. A table with three stools sat in the middle. A tiny window above the table let in a spear of sunlight. The soldiers shoved me onto a stool. And there I sat in my bloodstained skirts, clasping my bloodstained hands.

  For a long time, I was left alone on that stool, in front of that table, with the morning light building as it streamed through that tiny window. A guard stood at the door, rifle across his chest, not saying a word. I felt an old terror. The terror I had felt when I had heard high treason and death by hanging.

  Finally; two marines. A captain. An ensign. They asked me my name. Asked me my status. I pulled my ticket of leave from the pocket of my dress, and sat it on the table. The edges were stained in blood.

  The captain leant forward and placed the pocket watch on the table. “Who does this belong to?”

  I swallowed hard. “It belongs to Adam Blackwell.” I looked down at the blood on my hands, feeling sickness rise in my throat. Feeling a little hysteria rise with it. “Let me wash. Please. I need to wash.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to breathe deeply. I felt as though I were trapped in the worst of my nightmares. “I didn’t kill him,” I said. “It was Patrick Owen.”

  A moment of silence. I kept my eyes on my knotted fingers. I couldn’t look at that watch. Couldn’t look at the stains on the edge of my ticket of leave. I thought of Blackwell handing it to me as smoke poured from the factory above the jail. Thought of the fleeting kiss he had pressed into my neck. I blinked back my tears.

  “Tell me what happened,” said the captain.

  But of course, I knew nothing of what had happened. Nothing beyond the moment Owen had struck me with the plank of wood.

  I garbled through a tangled tale of finding the rebels outside Captain Grant’s house. Of my altercation with Brady. Of Lottie’s cries and Owen’s laughter and the blow to my head that had left me unconscious in the street. “The next I knew,” I said, “Lieutenant Blackwell’s body was beside me.”

  “You did not see Mr Owen kill Lieutenant Blackwell.”

  A question? Or was he painting a picture of my guilt?

  And then I told them, as slowly and calmly as I could, of the way I had taken Lottie back to my room at the Whaler’s Arms. Of the way she had disappeared in the night and gone for Owen. Told him of the lieutenant’s whereabouts.

  I spoke of the events that had taken place at the Owens’ cottage after the Castle Hill rebellion. And I spoke of Patrick Owen’s need for revenge.

  “How did you come to know Lieutenant Blackwell?” asked the captain.

  I knotted my fingers together. “I met him in Parramatta. He… offered me a bed.”

  “Ah.” And that one word was all it took for me to know my story had been taken for fiction. I was a concubine from the factory above the jail. As striking an admission of guilt as there could ever be.

  Do you know why Lieutenant Blackwell was in Sydney?

  Yes. He was returning to England to see his wife.

  That must have angered you I’m sure. Perhaps enough to kill?

  My body shook with anger, fear, grief. But I clenched my fists and pressed my shoulders back. I would not fit neatly into their story. I was not a jealous government lass driven to murder.

  I used a clean patch of skin on my wrist to wipe my eyes. “It was Patrick Owen,” I said again. But I had no proof. I could not even claim to be a witness. “The body,” I coughed. “It was… defaced. How do you imagine I might have done such a thing? With what weapon?”

  But the look the captain gave me said he knew the weapon would be found. And he knew that I was capable.

  The guard led me down the passage and unlocked the door to a narrow stone cell. He followed me inside and locked the door behind us. Shoved me hard against the cold stone wall. Pain jolted down my spine.

  “Blackwell was a friend,” he said. “A schoolmate.”

  I heard a sudden, hysterical laugh escape me. Because of course he was. Because this place was ruled by redcoats who had studied together, trained together, fought together. And they would band together to see that everyone below them fell into line.

  And when I laughed, I also cried; sobs that came from deep inside me and stole my breath. I turned away from the guard and crumpled to the floor, my head pressed to my knees.

  I waited to be thrown against the wall again. Waited to be struck, or for some fierce interrogation. But the guard didn’t speak again. Engulfed in tears, I did not hear him leave. Did not hear the door open, or close, or lock. All I knew was when I finally looked up in an attempt to catch my breath, the dark was thick and I was alone.

  That night, I huddled in the corner of the cell, shivering in spite of the thick, wet heat. In fleeting moments of clarity, I told myself I would fight. I would make sure the world knew Patrick Owen had been the one to pull the trigger. But my resolve was without determination. My will to fight was swamped by grief.

  Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Blackwell’s beaten body, stained in blood, his face unrecognisable, the uniform he had always worn so neatly hanging open at his sides.

  I heard myself inhale.

  The jacket unbuttoned.

  In all the time I had known him, Blackwell had never worn his jacket unbuttoned.

  I hugged my legs, pressing my eyes hard against my knees. A trivial detail. Owen had likely caught Blackwell unaware. Or he had heard me calling for him. Had raced out of the house to help me.


  But the thought gnawed at the back of my mind.

  The jacket unbuttoned.

  And in the darkness I was back there again; in the street outside the Grants’ house, with Brady’s hands on my shoulders and my fingers reaching for his pistol. I felt the metal, felt my hand slide around the stock. And then? I dug into my memories, into that fragment of a second before I had been struck. Had there been the sound of a gunshot? Had I pulled the trigger?

  I heard myself breathe louder, faster. Dan Brady, lurching in front of me as I thrust my knee into his groin. Dan Brady stumbling, my hand on his weapon. Had I put a bullet in his chest?

  Brady was tall like Blackwell. Dark-haired and broad-shouldered. The two men could easily be mistaken from a distance.

  And at once I was on my feet, pacing back and forth across the lightless cell, my feverish mind grappling at the possibility. Was it was Dan Brady’s body that had been lying at my feet?

  *

  I knew I was walking a straighter path to the hangman. But the next morning, I told the captain I had pulled the trigger on Dan Brady. Told him the body had been defaced. Made to look like Blackwell.

  I knew the bloodstained ticket of leave in my pocket would send me to the gallows, no matter what I said in that interrogation room. But I needed the truth to be known.

  Was Owen seeking to punish me? Had he broken into the house and gone to Blackwell’s room to find it empty but for his belongings? Had he defaced Brady’s body to disguise his identity? Put him in Blackwell’s uniform and left him lying at my feet?

  I felt deathly certain of it. Knew Owen had done this so I might believe he had killed the man I loved.

  I told my story again, of the altercation outside the tavern, ending with my new and firm belief that I had pulled the trigger on Brady before I had been knocked out. But there was nothing but my word to support my story. Nothing beyond my desperate belief to suggest the body did not belong to Blackwell.