One of Us Buried

by Johanna Craven

  I trudge along the riverbank, following the narrow path along the water. Trees hang low, trying to reclaim the wilderness. Thin walking tracks are beaten into the bush, interlocking paths carved by the boots of twenty years of settlers. Flies swarm about my face, clouds of mosquitoes rising from the mangroves.

  I keep walking, my skirts in my fist and my eyes darting. My shift is damp with sweat, and my hair curls and clings to my cheeks.

  I will see James Squires’ inn at Kissing Point, Charlie has told me. And from there I must turn in towards the forest to find that hut belonging to the Owens.

  I feel certain Blackwell will not find the absolution he is looking for. Instead, he will stand on that doorstep and make himself a target. If he comes face to face with the woman who watched him kill her family, it will not be forgiveness he receives. It will likely be a ball to the chest.

  As I walk and walk, my thoughts turn to Sophia. To all the lies Blackwell had told me. Lies, I see clearly, that were constructed to keep me at a distance.

  I understand. I despise it, but I understand. For all my twelfth night balls and worsted gowns, I am still a convict woman. It is a stain I will never wash away. I understand the great shame it would bring to a military officer; a man of God, to give his heart to a factory lass. A concubine.

  A part of me loathes myself for this unshakable love I feel, after all the lies he has told. I want to turn my back. But I know I will never be able to. Because as hard as I had tried to be the one with the power, I am well aware of the pull he has over me. Instead of the anger I want to feel, I am gripped with terror that I will find him dead.

  There is Squires’ inn; square and white at the water’s edge. Row boats are tied to the jetty, men sitting on the riverbank with pipes in their hands. The sinking sun sears off the water.

  I turn away from the river to face the thick wall of bushland. I push my way through branches and step over tangled knots of ferns.

  Is that an overgrown path beneath my feet? Impossible to tell. I follow it anyway, deeper into the shadowed wilderness, pushing away thoughts of natives’ spears, and of the monsters that hide in the bush. Ancient trees reach forever upwards, barely moved by a breath of hot wind.

  And then I stop walking. Because I see a crooked stone chimney peering out from between the trees.

  The thin path leading up to the cottage is almost lost beneath the undergrowth. Exhaustion pressing down on me, I take slow, careful steps, holding my skirts above my ankles. With each step, the twigs beneath my feet crackle loudly. Birds flee as I approach; flashes of colour in the fading light.

  I can tell from a distance the place is abandoned. The bush has started to reclaim the house; vines growing up one wall and a tree branch curling through a window. The door hangs open on its hinges.

  I step inside. Remnants of old lives are still here; the table in the corner, the iron fingers of the grate, jar lids scattered between fallen leaves. And there on the wooden walls are the bloodstains; wine-dark shadows that have barely begun to fade. But at the back of the house, a rotting patch of wall has been replaced, the new planks of wood stark and white against the old. They seem out of place, out of time.

  I stare at the bloodstains. And I imagine Blackwell pulling the trigger. Imagine Owen’s cousins falling. The images don’t make sense to me; they don’t feel right. A part of my brain refuses to accept that Blackwell is capable of doing such a thing. But I have learnt better than to succumb to my naivety.

  He has killed. And he has lied. But none of that changes the worry that is heaving in my chest.

  I call his name. It feels wrong to do so; to disrupt this silence with the name of the man who had pulled the trigger. My voice vanishes. And I turn abruptly, unable to bear being in the place any longer.

  I call again.

  Still, there is silence. I keep walking.

  A hundred yards from the hut, I see a swathe of grey fabric hanging from a tree. Old curtains, I realise. Taken from the cottage. They have been hung from low branches to create a crude shelter.

  In front of the tent is a burned-out campfire, and beside it, a pile of tools; a hammer and saw, a wood plane lying on its side. I walk towards them, holding my breath.

  Blackwell steps out from beneath the shelter.

  A sob of relief escapes me and I throw my arms around him. For a fleeting moment, I don’t care about his lies, or the blood staining the wall of the cottage. I am just glad he is alive. Glad I am alive. The odds of us both standing here breathing seem impossibly high.

  I feel his arms slide around me. And I could break. But I step back, out of his embrace. He grips my shoulders, eyes full of questions.

  “What are you doing here, Eleanor?”

  “I came to find you. I was worried for you. I was so afraid that…” I glance around. “Are you alone? You’ve not been followed? Owen…”

  “Owen’s not here,” he says. “No one is here.”

  That doesn’t feel true. There are ghosts from the past here. Spectres of Owen’s family, of Blackwell’s unspoken guilt.

  “Why have you come out here?” I ask, though I feel I already know the answer. If he leaves this place without absolution, those ghosts will follow him all the way to England.

  “When I came to this cottage after the uprising,” he says, “there was a woman here. One of the men’s wives perhaps. She was hiding in the bush outside the house. She must have seen me coming.” He sighs deeply. “I didn’t see her until after the men were dead. I looked into her eyes and all I saw was hate.

  “I came back here to tell her how much I regret what I did.” His voice is low, and as unsteady as I’ve ever heard it. “But she’s gone. There’s no one left.”

  I stare through the trees at the outline of the house. Look back at the makeshift shelter he has erected. A cockatoo swoops; a ghostly flash of white.

  “Why such guilt over this above all the other conflict you’ve seen?” I don’t mean to excuse this bloodstained cottage. Just to understand.

  “Because this was no battlefield,” says Blackwell. “This was a man’s home.”

  “You were doing as you were instructed.”

  “Yes. Without question.” I hear that expressionlessness I had seen so often in that hut in Parramatta. An emptiness, I see now, for his guilt to hide behind. Is this the cost of power, I wonder? A haunting guilt? Perhaps power is something that ought not be so fiercely sought.

  “You must have been here for days,” I say, thinking of all the blurred sunrises and sunsets I had been locked in my prison cell. My eyes drift to the tools scattered beside the firepit. And I think back to the day we had sat beside the Parramatta River and stared up at the towering redgums.

  I learned a little construction when I was at school, he had said. A way of leaving your mark on a place.

  “You’re the one who made the repairs to the house,” I say. “A way of leaving your mark.”

  He doesn’t speak at once, just turns to look at the cottage, silhouetted in the twilight. “Well,” he says finally, “perhaps in this case it is more about undoing the mark I have left on the place.”

  “The cottage is empty. Why have you continued? Fixing the house will not change what happened inside it.”

  “No,” he says. “It won’t. But mending this cottage was to be an act of decency. Perhaps in some small way it still can.”

  I hear the fragility in his voice; the guilt hiding beneath the surface that is pushing its way out.

  “Maggie’s trial?” I say huskily. “Is that why you let Owen walk free? Because of all that happened at this cottage?”

  Blackwell’s eyes are on the cracked windows of the house. “How could I send another member of this family to his death?”

  I let out my breath in a sharp exhalation. I need to walk away. I can’t stand here speaking to the man who has lied to me from the beginning. The man who let Maggie’s killer walk free.

  I stride out past the tent, past the cottage, past the remains of the
campfire, yanking on my skirts as they entangle themselves on branches. I have no thought of which direction I’m walking, or what I will find. A part of me wants to walk all the way back to Sydney Town, but if I set out in the dark, the forest will swallow me. I turn in a circle. I cannot have walked more than a mile from Squires’ inn. But in which direction?

  I hear footsteps behind me, the undergrowth crackling. Blackwell calls my name. I hear confusion in his voice. Why am I running away?

  He reaches for my arm, but I yank away.

  “You lied,” I say. “About your wife.”

  Something passes across his eyes. What is he to attempt? An apology? An explanation? How can any of that be sufficient?

  “Yes,” he says finally. “I did.”

  A part of me is glad for his bluntness – glad he has attempted neither apology nor explanation. I don’t need him to explain. I know what I am. I know why he did what he did. I had arrived on his doorstep in blue striped skirts.

  Wind rustles the bush, making me shiver. The light is draining quickly. The shadows are thickening and the birds shrieking in the trees.

  “You can’t stay out here,” Blackwell says finally. “It’s getting dark.” He turns back to look at the tent. “I have shelter.”

  I let out a humourless laugh, because at those words I am back on the streets of Parramatta, standing in the rain outside Reverend Marsden’s church. Where would I be right now if I had chosen not to follow Blackwell back to his hut? A pointless question, of course. Because we both know well there can be no changing the past.

  And just like I did that stormy night, I walk with him back to his shelter, because I have no place else to go.

  I take the food from my pockets and sit it on the edge of the blanket. Despite all the walking, I’m not hungry. All I want is to sleep. To forget this most confronting, draining of days; a day I was never supposed to even see.

  I curl up on the edge of the blanket Blackwell has laid across the ground. The wool smells stale and damp. And I watch the last of the light give way to the dark. My thoughts are churning. I think of Lottie alone in her cell, awaiting death. Waiting for me to take Owen’s life; to bring about the justice I have been so desperately craving since I found Maggie’s body on the side of the road. I think of Blackwell’s lies and the ghosts in the cottage that have kept him unable to leave this place.

  I lie there in the dark, listening to him breathe. I know he is awake. I imagine he is staring into the darkness, eyes open, thoughts whirring as quickly as my own.

  I feel his hand slide over my shoulder. I can’t bring myself to look at him, even through the thick dark. Moonlight shafts through the trees, painting shadows on the roof of the tent.

  “A God-fearing soldier like you is not supposed to love a woman who sits at the spinning wheels in the factory,” I say. “That’s why you lied, isn’t it.” It is not a question.

  He lets out a deep breath. “I was led to believe certain things about this place. About the Irish. And about the convicts. Especially the women. And I never questioned any of it.

  “I was taught to think of the Irish as animals. I didn’t question that before I came out here to the Owens’ cottage. And I pulled the trigger on innocent men.” His fingers tighten around the top of my arm. “And when I took in a factory lass from the street, I was not expecting you. I was expecting what I had been told I would see.”

  “Immorality,” I say. “A loose woman.”

  I know that, had I not been the one in convict slops, I would have seen this place in the same way. I would have watched the women from the factory crawl into bed with their settlers and soldiers, and I would have called them whores.

  “And so? Your lie was protection against temptation?”

  “Yes,” he says. “I suppose that’s what it was.”

  Protection against the shame of falling for a factory lass.

  I can’t bring myself to speak – to do so would be to either voice my anger or relinquish it. And I can do neither.

  The silence between us is thick; heavier than it had been the night I’d first lain beside him in the night. Had he decided then to lie to me about his wife? Erect that barrier that would keep me distanced? Or had that decision come later?

  “For whatever it’s worth,” he said, “I feel a great anger at myself.”

  “Because of me? Because I caused you to sin?” I hear my own bitterness.

  “Because of you,” he says. “But not because you caused me to sin. Because I lost you. To my own foolishness. And my own lies.”

  I roll over. I can barely see more than his outline, but I know I am looking into his eyes.

  “You’re a good person, Eleanor,” he says. “You deserve far better than what you’ve been given in this place.”

  I let out a cold laugh. I’m unsure if his words are an understatement, or the greatest of untruths. I don’t feel like a good person. I’m not sure I ever have.

  “Captain Grant told Flynn you and I were together,” I tell him. “He broke off our betrothal.”

  For a long time, Blackwell doesn’t speak. “I’m sorry,” he says finally. “I truly am.”

  His words have left an ache inside me. For the first time, there is no barrier between us; no Flynn, no Sophia, no colony watching. No barrier but my own anger, my own reluctance to let him near me after all he has done.

  His hand tightens around my arm. Does he mean to hold on to me? Do so and he will likely drown. I am barely able to hold my head above water.

  “My entire world,” he says finally, “it’s been upturned since I came to this place. I’ve found myself questioning everything I thought I knew. And that has shown me very clearly that I should not have blindly accepted the things I was taught. I ought to have thought for myself.”

  How well I know that feeling. I ought to have thought for myself, as I had carted counterfeit coins around the city. I ought to have thought for myself as the thief-takers had led me from Jonathan’s townhouse.

  “This place changes you,” I say.

  “No. Not the place. The people in it.” His thumb moves against my shoulder.

  “I was to die,” I say. “For your murder.”

  He sits up suddenly. “What?”

  And I tell him it all; of the rebels coming to the Grants’, and the body in the street. I tell him of how I slid out of the hangman’s grasp and how Lottie is to die.

  Blackwell lets out his breath. He shuffles across the blanket, pressing his forehead against mine. His hands are tangled tightly in my hair. He pulls me hard against him, his nose brushing against mine. “I’m sorry,” he breathes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry for everything.”

  I let him hold me. I need him to do it. My anger has not faded, but I need something to steady myself. The relief of escaping the gallows is so fierce I can barely fathom it. Coupled with grief over Lottie and the pain of Blackwell’s betrayal, I feel as though I am falling.

  “In the morning,” I say, “we go back to Sydney. You’ve only days until your ship leaves. And nothing you do here is going to change the past.”

  Each of us here must live with our mistakes; live with the crimes that sent us into this new world. Why should Blackwell be any different? But in spite of myself I curl up against his chest, trying to memorise the feel of him beneath my fingers before he disappears from my life forever.

  I hear noise outside and sit up quickly. A crackle of twigs. It is not the sound of an animal. It is the sound of footsteps.

  Natives? My heart speeds.

  Blackwell climbs out from beneath the shelter. On my knees behind him, I look into the darkness. I can make out the shapes of the trees in the moonlight.

  “Who’s there?” says Blackwell. The old authority is back in his voice. The sound of it is swallowed quickly by the dark. He reaches for the tinderbox and lights the lamp. He holds it up, shining it over the thick pillars of the trees. The orange glow picks out a small face between the gnarled trunks.

 
“Kate?” I can’t make sense of her being here.

  Blackwell looks at me for an explanation, but I just stumble through the darkness towards the girl.

  “What are you doing here? You came all this way on your own?”

  She throws her arms around my waist. “A man came to the tavern,” she coughs. “He made me tell him where you were.” Her voice is wavering, cheeks stained with tears.

  My stomach tightens. “Did he hurt you?”

  She shakes her head, but keeps it pressed hard against my chest. “He’s here,” she says. “He came for you.” She looks past me at Blackwell. “And him.”

  I catch Blackwell’s glance, then look hurriedly back at Kate. “Did he force you to come out here?”

  She shakes her head. “I followed him.” Her voice is trembling. “I thought he was going to hurt you. I had to find you. Tell you he was coming.”

  I close my eyes and pull Kate close again. “You must be exhausted.” I feel a tug in my chest that she might put herself in danger on my account. “Where is Owen now?” I whisper. And her gaze drifts past me to the inky outline of the cottage.

  Blackwell steps out into the night.

  “No,” I say. “Please don’t.”

  I know that somehow, this has to end. But Blackwell is walking towards Owen without a weapon. And I see that this can only end one way.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “Now my boys, liberty or death.”

  Philip Cunningham,

  Leader of Castle Hill rebellion

  Sunday 4 March 1804

  Faint light appears in the window of the cottage. Blackwell walks towards it, his steps almost soundless against the undergrowth.

  I crawl back into the shelter, feeling my way through the flickering light for his pack. A water flask. A husk of bread. Jar of potted meat. I find no weapon.

  I let out my breath in frustration and crawl back out of the shelter. Hand the lamp to Kate.

  “Stay here,” I tell her, putting my hand to her back to usher her inside. She crawls onto the blanket and sits up on her knees. “Rest,” I say, though her eyes are wide and bright. Lamplight flickers on her cheeks, and for a second I see her mother.