by Cameron Nunn
The Bathurst road zigzagged up the side of a great wall of yellow and grey sandstone. That morning, it rained furious and continued through the day. Everything were soaked in the heavy downpour. Mr O’Neill cursed. That night there were no fire, only cold mutton and hard tack what had to be soaked before it were able to be chewed.
For five days the road pushed steady up the mountains. At times we passed heavy loaded drays moving slowly back towards Sydney, piled high with tight-packed bales of wool. The road were barely wide enough for two drays passing in opposite directions and often we had to stop and let one or the other pass first. All the time Mr O’Neill carried his musket across his lap and a long barrelled pistol stuck through his belt. At staging posts and camps, he stopped to find out about the road ahead. Had the rains made sections dangerous? Were there any bushrangers? There were too many places where the road narrowed along the edge of a cliff and danger of one kind or another might wait.
On the eighth day after we’d left Sydney, the road broke forth at the top of a high mountain pass. Stretched out below us as far as I could see were light-timbered grasslands. Even from the top of the mountain I could make out small clusters of farms. In all my time growing up in London, I’d never seen naught so vast and empty. The wind raced up the mountain and caught my breath.
“We’ll need to be quick if we are to get to Collit’s Inn before sunset,” Mr O’Neill muttered.
The dirt road wound down the mountain, twisting back on itself as it zigzagged downwards. I could see more clearly the areas what Mr O’Neill said were called the Vale of Clwydd and Hassan’s Wall. As we approached the first bend, Mr O’Neill called for the brake. Jack forced the long pole what we carried into the spokes and the wheels grabbed and slid in the dirt, stopping quickly.
In slow stages, the dray moved down the slope. It were dusk when we finally reached the base of the mountain. The inn were the biggest building we’d seen since we crossed the Nepean. There were a number of outbuildings scattered around with no apparent order. For the first time, Mr O’Neill seemed to relax. That night we shared some rum. It burned my throat as I swallowed, but it felt warm in my belly as I lay down. There were two other teams with drays packed high with bales of wool, destined for Sydney and on to England. Mr O’Neill talked to them until late, sharing stories about the road ahead.
“The road’s clear to Bathurst,” he announced the next morning. “We’ll make good time.”
“How much further?” I asked.
“We’re about halfway. If the weather holds we’ll make good time to Bathurst. The Wellington road is rougher.”
He might as well have been talking about places on the moon. The names meant naught to me, whose whole world until five months ago had been little more ’n the banks of the Thames. Still, I nodded my head as though understanding. It were the most information that Mr O’Neill had given on the whole journey.
“If the weather holds, I’d think another ten or twelve days and we should be there,” he announced.
“Will we pass any more towns?” I asked.
“Aye, there is quite a town at Bathurst now and a settlement at Blackman’s Swamp. Apart from that there’s little between here and the camp at Wellington. Just a handful of savages and a couple of hundred thousand sheep.”
I seen Jack look over at me when Mr O’Neill spoke of savages. Somehow, I knew he were smiling at his own private joke.
“What’ll I do when we get there?” I asked, not wanting to look at Jack.
“Everything I tell you and quicker ’n that tongue of yours can ask another question. Remember what I said.” Mr O’Neill resumed his gruff tone.
“Tell him he’ll be staring at bloody sheep day and night till he can’t stand the sight of them no more,” said Jack, reading my uncertainty.
“There ain’t naught wrong with keeping an eye on the sheep. They’re the ones what keep your arse in britches.”
Jack made some comment I didn’t hear and turned aside.
“Ignore him,” muttered Mr O’Neill. “You’ll be looking after the sheep on one of the outer runs and doing whatever else you’re told.”
“Will there be anyone else?”
“Yeah, about a thousand bloody sheep and the flies to keep you company,” called Jack, just out of reach of Mr O’Neill’s arm.
The weather held fine for the next six days and Mr O’Neill seemed happy with the progress we were making. At Blackman’s Swamp, Mr O’Neill called in on a squatter who he’d bought some tools and supplies for in Sydney. Jack and I sat outside in the shadow of the dray while the men talked inside the squatter’s homestead.
“Ask O’Neill what happened to the last boy,” Jack said.
The statement caught me by surprise. For the last three weeks Jack had barely spoken a word to me.
“What?”
“Ask O’ Neill what happened to the last boy,” he repeated.
“What happened?” From the tone of Jack’s voice I knew the story were something I didn’t want to hear. I knew he were baiting me, but I couldn’t help looking at him.
“Disappeared. Out there less ’n three months and he vanishes.”
“He ran off?”
“That’s what O’Neill will tell you. But there’s nowhere to go to out there. Either the Devil took him or the blacks got him. They can see you when you can’t see them and they wait till the time’s right. Savages don’t reckon time. They’ve got all the time in the world, just waiting. And whatever they kill, they eat.” Jack were now sitting so close I could feel his hot breath push out against me. “They spear you in the back and while you’re still breathing they start to hack into you. The thing what a savage likes most is the liver and if they can cut it out of you while there’s still life in you, they believe they can eat your spirit which will make them stronger.” He reached out with long bony fingers and grabbed me hard just under the rib cage.
I kicked out as hard as I could and Jack let go. “I ain’t scared,” I said.
Jack got up and began to walk around the back of the dray. “But you will be. You’ll be shitting yourself before the week’s out.”
I t was early afternoon by the time they turned off the main road and down a dirt track. A pair of bent letterboxes marked the entrance. The car rattled and bumped its way along. Patchy grass and stunted gums stretched out on either side of the dirt road. Will looked out at the surroundings. Between the trees, he could see cliff walls in the distance, pushing up from heavily timbered slopes, like a great stone lizard basking on the top of a green hill.
“Nearly there,” Gran called out as they rumbled noisily over a cattle grate.
Two more turns, over another grate, through an open wire gate and Gran pulled the car to a stop. They sat there for a moment in silence as the dust settled around them.
“Welcome to Brymedura. This is the end of the line,” she said cheerfully.
Will got out of the car. Before him was the most miserable farmhouse he could have imagined. Rosie glanced across at him. He turned his gaze away quickly, afraid he might betray his own thoughts. Even the air had a dustiness that left a sour taste on Will’s tongue.
It was impossible to imagine that Gran lived in this house. It was difficult to imagine that anyone lived in it. Across the front and along the side there was a covered verandah that made the place dark and ugly. Nothing seemed quite straight. Even the water tank on the side looked like some giant had leaned on one side of it, pushing it slightly out of shape. Pieces of rusting machinery were piled around the verandah and down the front steps, as though the house had begun to throw the junk out of its own accord. Bundles of rust reds and faded blues and peeling yellows tumbled down the stairs and spread themselves around the front of the house like suburban garden gnomes. At the top of the steps a few small potted plants clung grimly onto life. The corrugated iron roof was rusting in big long fingers of red-brown that slid their way down from the ridge cap. The weatherboards that might have once been blue or white or even yel
low had taken on the same dusty colours as everything else around.
“Do you need a hand with the bags, Will?” asked Gran, snapping him out of his horror.
“Um, no, it’s fine,” he stammered.
Just as he was reaching into the boot to get the bags, there was a barking scurry as a white and brindled dog scrambled from under the house and made a direct line for Will. It leapt with excitement, as though greeting a long-lost friend.
“Get off me!” Will twisted away nervously, but the dog was excited to silliness. It wasn’t a big dog, but it was large-chested, with a head that looked out of proportion to its body and a tongue that seemed too large even for its oversized head.
“Looks like you’ve made yourself a friend.” Gran stood with her hands on her hips, laughing.
“What’s his name?” Rosie stood slightly behind Gran, clearly not trusting the dog’s jaws.
“He’s a her. And her name’s Nelson.”
“That’s not a girl’s name,” Rosie protested.
“It’s the name Pa’s given to every dog that we’ve ever had. Makes no difference if it’s a boy or a girl. It’s Nelson.”
“How come?” asked Rosie.
Gran tapped the side of her head and winked at Rosie. “Who can tell what goes on in the mind of a man? I’ve given up asking such things.”
Nelson was spinning and jumping between Will’s legs. She danced around him, yapping as Will tried to walk after Gran. Twice he had to stop for fear he was going to trip over her. As he followed Gran up the stairs, he tried not to bump into the things that lay scattered. Through a wooden screen door, there was a short hallway with doors leading to the left and right.
“She’s a funny old thing, Nelson. Just turned up one day on our verandah like she’d come to visit. I tried to get rid of her, but she just kept disappearing under the house and reappearing as soon as I went inside. She’s had a bit of a rough trot. One of her ears has been chewed badly and there’s some scars on her legs. It makes me so mad the way some of the farmers around here treat their dogs. I guess old Nelson decided it was time to up and find a new home. She’s normally wary of strangers. I guess she’s made an exception for you.”
Gran was busy clearing clutter off chairs and moving it onto the table on one side of the room. “Just pop the bags anywhere, Will.”
Will had never seen so much mess.
“You need to tidy up,” said Rosie, her eyes wide.
“You’re absolutely right, young lady. And you can help me. Your grandfather is such a hoarder.”
“Where’s Pa?” Rosie asked.
“He’ll be about somewhere. If he isn’t in sooner, he’ll be here for dinner.” Gran moved into the kitchen and opened a small door on an old wood stove, poking about in the embers. Rosie stared. She’d never seen a wood stove before. “Pass me some kindling, would you Will?” Gran said without turning round.
“Don’t you have electricity, Gran?” Rosie asked.
“Of course we do,” she grinned. “But let me tell you something. You haven’t tasted real cooking until you’ve used a real oven. For afternoon tea I’ll bake you the best scones you’ve ever had.” She poked some more and the room steadily filled with smoke. Will and Rosie both began coughing and Gran chuckled as she continued.
The kitchen was as cluttered as the lounge room, with bits and pieces covering the table and scattered across benches. Will couldn’t imagine his dad growing up here. He was obsessed with keeping the shop neat and tidy and constantly went on at Mum when things were out of place. If Will left anything out, even for five minutes, his dad would complain that someone would “trip over it and break their necks”.
Gran’s cheerfulness lifted his spirits slightly, but there was an uneasiness that kept wrapping itself around him.
She suddenly slapped her knees and said, “Well, we’d better get you two settled in. I’ll show you where you’re going to sleep and then you can get washed up and give me a hand tidying up this place.”
Will picked up the bags and followed Gran and Rosie back up the hallway towards the front door. “Rosie, you’ll be in here,” she nodded. “Pa and I are just across the hall if you get worried or anything.” The room was dark and cool. Gran threw the curtains apart and the room brightened. “This was your dad’s room when he was little. I think we might still have a few of his toys around somewhere. Come on, Will, I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.”
They walked out the front door and on to the verandah. Nelson began skipping around Will again, as though this was all part of a game. Gran turned down the side of the house and at first Will was confused about where she was leading him. Part of the outside verandah had been closed in to form a kind of makeshift room.
Gran yanked at the door. “Pa keeps promising me that he’s going to fix this. I’ll believe it when I see it.” Nelson galloped in ahead as though it was being opened especially for her and jumped up on the old cast-iron bed. “Get down, Nelson,” Gran scolded, dragging the dog off by the collar.
Will took in the dilapidated room. Pushed up the far end was the same clutter that he’d seen spread through most of the house. There were rusting kerosene tins and a broken chair in the far corner. Will could taste dust again.
“I know how you young men love to have your independence. I thought you’d prefer it away from Rosie. This way you can come and go without waking anyone.”
Where would I go? Will thought.
“You’ve got the best room. In summer, it’s the coolest in the whole house.”
But Will wasn’t going to be here in summer. Dad had said it was only for a few weeks, until things settled down. A sick feeling came up from his stomach. He tried to breathe.
“I know it’s a mess and you’ll want to fix it up, make it more like home.” She walked over to the rusting tins and tools as though she’d just noticed them. “Pa promised me he was going to get rid of this junk before I got home.” She levered open the louvred slat windows and light cut through in dusty bands. “It might get a bit cold at night so I’ll get some extra blankets.”
After she’d left, Will slumped down on the bed. The room was like a shed that someone had accidentally left a bed in. There wasn’t even a light in the room, just a ceiling of rafters and corrugated metal. He needed to call his father. This wasn’t going to work. They had to get out of here. He had to get back to Sydney.
He pulled out his phone. Shit. No signal.
It took another three days after we left Blackman’s Swamp to reach the homestead at Brymedura where Mr Harrison had ‘taken up’ land. Each day the sun seemed to grow hotter. Mr O’Neill gave me an old felt hat, but the sun still bit into wherever it could find skin. We were now following a small river he called Mandagery Creek what meandered and wound through the low hills. I wanted to know the names of all the places. Knowing them seemed important somehow, like I were creating an imaginary map in my mind what made sense of this hard land. Once or twice Mr O’Neill had called out names before I’d started to ask. There were still no point in asking Jack. He’d hardly spoken since the night at Blackman’s Swamp. He sat there, sullen, next to Mr O’Neill, chewing on the end of his pipe, every now and then a harsh cough carrying back to where I were squashed in. There were no roads now. Through the long grass, the bullocks seemed to find their way along the faint wheel ruts what marked the journey. Late in the afternoon on the third day we turned away from the main creek and into a broad valley, hemmed in by cliffs.
Trees had been cleared on both sides and the grass grew thick and yellow. We crossed two small rivulets what trickled between boulders. Sheep moved lazily across the track as we followed what were now a clear path. About two miles in, up a small rise, were a long pale cottage, near as big as Collit’s Inn. Scattered around were other buildings, much smaller ’n the white house on the hill. The grass around the buildings were dry and coarse. Some way behind the clearing, the ground rose sharp in a densely timbered slope, as tall as anything I’d seen since crossing th
e mountains. About three-quarters of the way up the slope the top were crowned with a sheer wall of gold and grey rock what looked as though it were pushing up to break free of the trees below.
“You wanted to know when we’d get there,” said Mr O’Neill. “Well, here we are. This is Brymedura.” I tried to take the whole thing in. In all the time we’d been travelling, I’d tried to fix a picture in my eye. “I’ll take the dray up to the homestead and let Mr Harrison inspect you, and then I’ll get one of the men to show you where to go.”
Jack hopped down from the dray. As the team moved slowly up the hill, Mr O’Neill relit his pipe. “When Mr Harrison speaks to you, you say, ‘Yes, Sir.’ Understood? And there’ll be none of your questions or I’ll whip your arse. You understand?”
“Yes, Mr O’Neill.”
When we reached the building on the top of the hill, I seen what had first seemed like one building were actually three, all clustered close together with smaller ones scattered about. The main building were long and the timber walls whitewashed, so they seemed to stand out against the land ’round about. At each end of the building were tall stone chimneys, whitewashed the same as the rest of the homestead. Stone foundations lifted the building off the ground, and gave it a grand appearance what seemed out of place in the ramshackle collection of buildings, like someone had dropped it there from another country. Steps led up to a large verandah what stretched across the front. A man came out through the front door and stood at the top of the steps. Judging from the way Mr O’Neill spoke about Mr Harrison, I were expecting someone with a frockcoat and cane. Instead the man were wearing plain moleskin trousers and a loose fitting blue shirt. He wore the same red kerchief tied around his neck as Mr O’Neill. The only thing what marked him as different were the large black boots what came just below his knees. They were a master’s boots, hard and black like the Devil himself. Amos said you can tell a lot by a man’s clothes. Mr Harrison’s boots were cruel boots.