by Mark Smith
‘How long were you there?’
‘We left the day after the trial. I don’t think Ramage trusted Tusker to go with us so he sent another Wilder. You remember the guy at the Ramsay farm last year?’
‘Col.’
‘He was okay. He looked out for us.’
‘What happened when you got to Wentworth?’
This time she turns on her side and her lips brush against mine. When she speaks I can feel her breath on my face. ‘It wasn’t so bad. We got clothes, shoes—and food. Bridget Monahan was in charge. I still don’t know what to make of her. She was hard on us. Daymu and me especially, for some reason.’
‘She helped us escape,’ I say.
‘I know, but nothing has changed, Finn. Sileys are always going to be slaves, always treated like shit.’
‘Maybe not always.’ I’m thinking of my conversation with Dowling. He didn’t say it but I got the impression he wasn’t comfortable with the treatment of Sileys.
‘Did you see what it was like in the abattoir tonight?’ Kas says. ‘Did you smell it? That’s the kind of work Sileys will be doing for years.’
I don’t have any arguments to put to her. Change—if it comes at all—will be slow.
She’s quiet for a while and I feel her relax into me. She puts her ear to my chest. ‘Is it still beating?’ I ask.
She gives a choked little laugh that might have tears in it. ‘Strong as ever,’ she says. She takes my hand and places it over her heart. ‘And mine?’ she asks.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Like a drum.’
And I realise, for now, this is enough: we have a future to look forward to. It won’t be easy, but we’ll be together.
Kas’s breath deepens and she sleeps.
As tired as I am, I can’t sleep. When I close my eyes, the vision of Tusker floating off into the murk of the river appears, his eyes rolling in his head, his mouth open. Everything else that’s happened tonight has stopped me thinking about those couple of minutes underwater. Could I have saved him? Pulled him to the surface so at least he had a chance. I hated him with every part of me, but maybe he still deserved that chance. I didn’t make a decision like I did with Ramage when I had the opportunity to kill him. This time, I just watched—I allowed him to die. Is that any different from killing someone?
I don’t have an answer. I’m too exhausted and I’m going to bed with a full belly, with Kas lying next to me. In time I’ll find that answer, but not now. Not here.
The next morning there’s more food—this time potatoes with bread. I almost made myself sick eating too much last night, so I take it easy. I think my stomach has shrunk with the lack of food.
There are no guards watching us but we’ve been told not to leave the building.
Harry and Willow arrive as we’re eating breakfast. ‘How’d you sleep?’ Harry asks.
‘Okay. What about you?’ I say.
‘Not so good,’ he says. ‘Someone kept me awake half the night.’
Stella steps through the door with a child on her hip.
‘Hope,’ Stella says, looking from her to Kas. ‘This is your aunty.’
Kas’s mouth opens but no words come out. She moves in slow motion. The last time we saw Hope she was a baby with wispy hair and tiny arms and legs. Now she looks so different. Her features are more defined, her hair is thick and black and her skin is a shade lighter than Kas’s. Her eyes—darker even than Rose’s—move over us, taking us in.
She lifts her hand to Kas’s mouth, then looks back to Stella.
Kas kisses her on the forehead and says, ‘Hello, Hope.’ She has tears streaming down her cheeks but a wide smile lights her face as she takes Hope into her arms.
Looking at them together like this I can’t help but think of Rose. This is the baby she carried to safety, the one she gave her life for, the one she was determined wouldn’t be a slave. And here she is, happy and healthy and safe from the clutches of Ramage.
After breakfast, Kas pulls me to one side. ‘We have to speak to Harry,’ she says.
‘What about?’
‘You’ll see.’
Harry sits on a bench seat in the morning sun. His back is to the bluestone wall and somehow the harsh light makes him look older, but his face creases into a familiar smile when he sees us.
‘What are you two up to?’ he asks, shifting to make room on the seat.
Kas leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees, turning sideways to look at Harry.
‘Harry,’ she starts, and I can see her struggling with whatever the question is she wants to ask. She flicks a glance at me before continuing. I don’t know where she’s going but she wants my support. ‘The Sileys,’ she says, finally. ‘If you’re the commissioner, you’ll be responsible for hunting them down, capturing them.’
It doesn’t sound like an accusation, but there’s intent in her words.
Harry exhales, like he’s been holding his breath. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to ask,’ he says.
Kas nods. ‘So…I’m asking now.’
I’ve never taken the time to think about Kas’s relationship to Harry. Now that I do, it seems she gravitates towards Stella and Willow, as though there’s something about Harry she doesn’t quite get. Maybe it’s his understated way of doing things, or how the gaps he leaves in conversations sometimes carry more meaning than the words. And I haven’t forgotten she was a prisoner at the valley farm when Harry was in charge. She sussed out Tusker pretty quickly, but Harry must have puzzled her—an honest man who, nonetheless, exploited Sileys.
‘To be honest, Kas. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But Dowling wants to change the way things are done in the zones. I told him I’m only interested in the job if I can concentrate on farming and rebuilding the community.’
‘And the bounty hunters?’ Kas persists.
‘Every hunter is one less farmer.’ He’s been avoiding Kas’s gaze but now he turns to her. He gently places his hand on her shoulder. ‘I’ll do everything I can, Kas. I promise.’
Kas looks like she wants to push him further, but she leans back against the wall, her head tilted to the sky. Harry’s hand stays on her shoulder, asking a question in its own way. Finally, she nods.
Winston strides across the yard with Daymu, JT and Ash. ‘We need to go to the medical room,’ he says.
This is done secretly, via back corridors in the jail. We move quickly, and Winston tells us to not to talk. He hustles us into a bright room, which he quickly darkens by drawing the curtains.
‘Why all the sneaking around?’ Daymu asks.
‘The fewer people that see you the better,’ Winston says. ‘We still haven’t worked out how we’re going to get you outside the fences.’ He pauses. ‘Not you two,’ he says nodding at JT and me. ‘Just the—’
‘Sileys.’ Daymu completes the sentence for him.
‘You have to understand the risk Dowling is taking,’ Winston says. ‘This has never been done before.’
The door opens and a figure is silhouetted in the light from the corridor.
‘So, we meet again,’ a woman’s voice says.
It’s Angela, the doctor from Longley. I know the risk she took for us, and I’m relieved she’s still free. She puts out her hand and I shake it.
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘You look like shit,’ she says. ‘What have they done to you?’ She lifts my chin with her finger and checks the cut. ‘You haven’t looked after those stitches either.’
‘Not really my fault,’ I say.
‘And your shoulder?’
‘Dislocated yesterday. JT put it back in.’
She carefully eases me out of the sling. ‘Not a bad job,’ she says. ‘Bet it hurt, though.’
She looks at us, checking our eyes first. Then she notes the trackers on our left hands. ‘Looks like I’ve got some work to do,’ she says, opening a drawer and laying out instruments on a small table.
She cleans my chin first th
en gives my shoulder a gentle workout to check the range of movement. ‘Keep it in the sling for a couple of weeks,’ she says.
Angela takes blood from all of us, labelling the samples as she goes. ‘I’m only guessing at Dowling’s plans for you, but you’d better pray these tests come back negative.’
‘What about the tests you did on JT and me in Longley?’ I ask.
‘Negative,’ she replies. ‘But you’ve been out in the wild again since then.’
I tell her about Gabriel.
‘That’s not good news,’ she says. ‘If you are heading outside the fences, you’ll always be at risk.’
‘Seems to me there’s risk everywhere—unless they’ve worked out how to stop the wind blowing.’
The last thing she does is remove our trackers. She starts with Kas, making a small slit in the skin close to her wrist, then sliding a narrow probe through the gap until it contacts the device. ‘This disarms it,’ she says. ‘And retracts the wires that hold it in place.’
Finally, she pulls the little piece of black metal free with a pair of tweezers. She holds it up to Kas’s face. ‘There,’ she says. ‘You’re officially no longer a Siley.’
Kas bites her bottom lip. I know she’s thinking of Rose. It was the infection that developed after she removed her tracker that killed her.
One by one, Angela extracts our devices, finishing each job with two small stitches I can hardly see. While she works she talks. ‘They found a body down river this morning,’ she says. ‘It was Tusker.’ She looks at me. ‘Seems he fell off a bridge.’
I shrug my shoulders.
A faint smile crosses her lips, then disappears. ‘He went rogue when they arrested Ramage.’
‘No one’s going to grieve for him,’ Kas says, her voice hard.
Angela stops what she’s doing. ‘You know they’re bringing Ramage here today?’
It’s mid-afternoon, hot and windy with dust swirling in the air, when a truck passes through the gates, surrounded by soldiers on foot, all armed and on alert. The truck swings around and backs up to one end of the courtyard. Kas and I watch from a window no more than ten metres away. The tailgate drops and Ramage emerges, shading his eyes from the sun.
Somehow, he looks older than when we saw him at the trial in Longley, like he’s shrunk. His shoulders hunch and he keeps his gaze to the ground. It’s only when they lift him down that I see his ankles are chained together, forcing him to shuffle.
Dowling steps into the courtyard and stands in front of Ramage, who finally raises his head. His stubble is patchy and grey and his hair is plastered with sweat. Dowling says something to him and he shakes his head slowly. Even from this distance I can see the contempt on his face. Dowling steps aside and the guard pushes Ramage through the door and out of sight.
Kas has been holding my hand, squeezing it tight while we’ve watched this little exchange.
‘Do you think he’s Hope’s father?’ I ask.
She turns to me, the question surprising her. She pauses, considering her answer. Slowly, she nods. ‘Once he found out Rose was pregnant,’ she says, ‘he stopped her going out to work on the farms and made sure she had enough to eat.’
‘Do you think he loved her?’ I ask.
Again, she takes her time to answer. ‘No,’ she says, finally. ‘It can’t be love when the other person hates you.’
After the lights come on that night, Winston takes me to a bright room with a table and two chairs. Dowling joins us and sits opposite me.
‘Did you see Ramage arrive today?’ he says, his voice low and serious.
‘Yes.’
‘You need to write down everything you can remember about the murder you witnessed. Then you can sign it as a sworn statement.’
‘Will I still have to appear in court?’
‘No. The statement will be enough,’ he says.
I don’t know how I feel about this. A part of me wants to confront Ramage, to see him when he faces the charges, but another part of me wants to get back to the coast as soon as I can.
‘Is it a real court?’ I ask.
‘It’s the best we can do at the moment.’
‘What happens if he’s not found guilty?’
‘Don’t worry. We have enough evidence. The punishment will be up to me to decide.’ He leaves it at that and I’m left to wonder how they’ll deal with people like Ramage in this new world they’re building.
I’ve told Dowling about Bridget Monahan and what she saw Ramage do to Ken Butler. Winston reckons she’s only too happy to give evidence. It looks like I won’t need to mention Kas and JT.
‘Take your time,’ Dowling says, walking out of the room with Winston. ‘Don’t omit any detail.’
Trying to recall everything Rose and I saw that day at the hayshed is like opening a book I haven’t read for ages—I have to find the story again, to figure where it fits with everything else that was happening back then.
There are a few things I remember easily because they shocked me: Rose wearing one of Mum’s dresses when I came back from hunting that morning; her changing the bandages on her hand and seeing the wariness in her eyes when I tried to help; I remember sitting on the ridge and looking out to sea, her telling me how weird it was when she saw me surfing. And slowly, my mind creeps through the bracken fern and climbs the tree to look at the Wilder’s camp at the hayshed. I can still feel the rough bark against my chest where we lay on the branches.
Ramage attacked Perkins with a spear, stabbing him again and again, and the Wilder’s body jerked up and down with every blow. I remember Rose touching my hand and turning away. And then Ramage pulled the dead man’s boots off and walked away, leaving him lying in the paddock.
I put it all down, trying not to get caught up in the fear and anger. I haven’t written anything in three years and my handwriting is scratchy, like it’s hard to form the letters. When I finish, I’m exhausted.
Dowling returns, takes the paper and reads it slowly, nodding his head. Every now and again he makes a tsk tsk sound with his tongue. Finally, he lays it on the table and looks at me.
‘Shocking,’ he says.
‘Is it enough?’ I ask.
‘It’ll do. With Bridget Monahan’s evidence, we should have enough to convict him. But now, I need you to recount everything you saw when Sweeney was murdered.’
This memory is much fresher, and it takes me no time to describe. There are some things I can’t put into words—the thud of the bullet into his chest, the way his body slumped to the ground, Tahir’s shrug and the ripple of fear that ran through everyone watching.
This time Dowling stays in the room. He studies me long and hard and my stomach squirms at the thought of him going back on our deal.
When I’m done, I ask if we can go home now.
‘As soon as we get your blood tests back,’ he says.
‘There’s one more thing I want to do,’ I say.
‘What’s that?’
‘I want to see Ramage.’
Dowling doesn’t reply straightaway. He’s weighing me up again. Finally, he nods. ‘Wait here,’ he says, stepping outside to talk to Winston, who throws me a disbelieving look.
A few minutes later Ramage arrives with two guards. The chains have been taken off his ankles but he still shuffles like an old man. He is pushed into the chair opposite me.
‘Do you want me to stay?’ Dowling asks.
‘No.’
‘I’ll be right outside,’ he says.
I’m left with Ramage, who sits with his elbows on the table and his fingers woven together. His breathing is laboured, and all his movements are slow and deliberate, as though he has to convince his body to make them. His face shows nothing. His eyes are glazed and he blinks in the hard light. One shoulder sits uncomfortably lower than the other.
It’s a surreal moment, sitting opposite this man I’ve feared and hated in equal amounts. He’s responsible for Rose’s death, for all the abuse at the feedstore, for the enslavin
g of the valley farmers, for the horrible murder of Ken Butler.
He scratches at the stubble on his chin and says, ‘What’ve you got to say, kid? I’m all ears.’
‘Not much,’ I say, feeling my stomach tighten. ‘I just wanted you to know—’
‘You’re giving evidence against me,’ he interrupts. ‘I know. They told me. You and that Monahan bitch.’
I try to focus on all the things I should say to him, everything that’s been building up since Rose arrived on the beach in Angowrie. But the words are lost somewhere and I start to wonder if this is actually a good idea.
He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms. ‘I know what you think of me, Finn. But the world was falling apart and someone had to step up to the plate and lead. I had to be hard—it just couldn’t be done any other way. I saved our little part of the world and this is the thanks I get.’ He waves his arms at the four walls. ‘But this isn’t the end of it. There’ll be someone to fill the gap I leave, you wait and see.’
He stops then and his face softens, like a burden has been lifted off his shoulders; as though he’d always expected it would end like this.
‘You think I hate you, Finn, but I don’t.’
Something crawls under my skin every time he uses my name.
He continues. ‘We’d have made a good team, you and me. You could have trimmed some of the hardness off me. Pulled me back on some of my’—he struggles to find the word—‘my excesses.’
It’s like he finds his way into my head when he talks, not allowing me space to think. This isn’t what I was expecting. I don’t want to hear his justifications. I don’t want to know what he thinks of me.
My heart is hammering in my chest.
It’s Dad who saves me, his voice coming to me from days we spent bobbing in the water, waiting between sets at the river mouth. Be patient, he’d say. Don’t chase the waves, hold your spot and when the time is right, take control. Seize the moment, Finn. When it’s your time.
My breathing slows and the words come without me having to think. ‘You didn’t step up to the plate, you just made things worse. What you did to the Sileys, to the feedstore kids, that wasn’t leadership, it was abuse. You did it because you could, because there was no one to stop you. You know what Rose told me?’