I Got His Blood on Me: Frontier Tales

by Lawrence Patchett

  ‘Oi!’ said one of them. ‘Where’s the boat?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ I said.

  ‘The boat,’ he said, impatient. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘It’s moored up,’ I said. ‘Can’t you see it?’

  ‘Did you hole it?’ he said. ‘You better not have damaged it, boy.’

  He seemed oblivious to the corpse we held between us. ‘Why would I?’ I said. ‘Go and look, if you must.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said, rolling his eyes, ‘keep your shirt on, nancy.’

  I stared at him, and he and his companions laughed, then they all plunged away towards the boat.

  Then we were in the bush. With my sodden brother tied to the log it was very slow going until we reached a creek and I called a halt. Already my bad arm was protesting the work and the Blacksmith was panting, sweat dripping from his eyebrows and beard.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I can’t bury him in the bush. The village we’re from, back home, we bury men in rock.’

  For reply he shook his head, then sat with his back against a trunk, exhausted. We had so little food now; I was ruining his health.

  Pulling the ropes from my brother I slid him off the log, removed his clothes and laid him in the creek. With my fingers I combed his hair back, teased out shell fragments. It was strange to touch him, strange to look, as a network of tattoos now went blue and black across his arms and chest. With the cold creek water I washed these foreign trophies of his life at sea, scars of a life I’d never witness or match. Then I dried his body with my own shirt and unwrapped a bundle of ash I’d brought from our campfire, rubbing it over his washed skin. Then I bound him very tight in blankets to prevent any part of him from coming loose, and roped his wrists together for transport.

  The Blacksmith was asleep, still propped against the trunk. Gently I shook him awake.

  ‘Can you lift him to my back,’ I said.

  Clankily the Blacksmith got to his feet. Taking my wet brother he boosted then tied the wrapped body to me, so I carried Cameron in a piggy-back. At my throat Cameron’s bound wrists lightly gagged me with each step.

  We began to climb. Under my brother’s weight I slipped frequently and the Blacksmith turned to pull me up over bush, tree-roots, vines—up, up. After several hours we reached the bushline and broke into clear space, a ridge of rock with a cold breeze passing across. In the windy exposure I followed the Blacksmith, his shirt flattening against his bony frame.

  Up and up the ridge we went. We were both weak and I stumbled often, scattering rocks, my bad arm throbbing with the weight. At last I could go no further and slumped to the rock, my brother sagging when I sat. The Blacksmith came down and unroped us and we slumped, the three of us, exhausted, a view of fiords and bush ranking away to the north. Inland there was endless bush; to the west the Tasman was vast, clouds trifling above it. Confronted with all this I thought of our distant home, the week and more of improbable tramp it would take to return to Bluff, and it seemed impossibly far off.

  ‘This is it,’ I said, to the Blacksmith. ‘This is a good place.’

  Immediately he got up and walked to the leeward side of the ridge, and there began lifting rocks and scraping out a shape.

  Once I’d gathered my breath I came to help.

  ‘We can’t take long,’ he said. ‘We must get off this ridge before dark.’

  Side by side we scraped the stones out, stubbing our fingernails on the sharp fragments until at last a shallow shape was ready. I pulled back my brother’s blankets so that his face showed, grey now with smeared ash, and a powerful smell came up from his body; he was ready to go under rock. One at each end, we laid him in the place, his feet facing the fiord. I covered his face with a blanket, then we filled in the rocks and mounded him up.

  The Blacksmith stepped back, and I stood for some moments in the chilling breeze before I realised he was waiting for me to say the rites. He didn’t know that for all my learning and complicated talk, I hadn’t learnt them off by heart.

  ‘Can you do it?’ I said.

  ‘Let’s be quick,’ he said.

  I nodded and bent my head.

  ‘Mother receive this man,’ he said. ‘Amen.’

  That was it. I blinked, then took the Blacksmith by the hand, gripped his elbow and then his shoulder. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  Then we dropped to the leeward side and went down. That night we camped late without a fire, eating in the dark some berries the Blacksmith had gathered as we walked. Next day we made the saddle where John and the others had gone through, the low cairn of rocks they’d left to guide us. From there we turned south, and many days of walking followed, so many I lost count. My arm throbbed from my wound, my feet blistered and slid inside their boots, in places stripped of their skin and sticky red. I walked dully behind the Blacksmith, too exhausted to speak much, collapsing at dark into a rough camp. Both mute and growing gaunt, we seldom spoke, and had very little to eat. Again at times I knew we were observed by scouts of the local Māori people, yet again we went unmolested, so obviously were we a ragged and worn-out pair leaving the territory without taking precious stones with us.

  With my feet so raw I developed a limp, and my arm worsened and puffed up, and still we marched. Soon the days began to blend into each other, each day’s march in its pain and hungry delirium succeeding one just like it. At last a day came when I could not rise in the morning and walk, and the Blacksmith mixed a paste of berries and root and smeared it on my gums until I could swallow and sit up. By dusk I was able to attempt to walk, and we resumed our march the next day, the Blacksmith going on, a skeletal shape in front of me, pausing at intervals to let me rest. When he spoke I saw his face haunted and dark; at times we both walked in a daze, numbly following a vague path we assumed led to Bluff or at least the coast.

  One mid-morning I was limping in my usual torpor when I heard him shout, and I turned. The noise had come from behind me. In my stupor I’d walked right past him. Turning back I found him in a creek, pulling watercress from the far bank and stuffing it in his mouth. I staggered in too and fell flat, my face in the water until he pulled me up, dragging me to the bank to put the wet leaves to my lips. After some mouthfuls I lay out flat on the creek bank, my numbed feet smeared with blood, my arm pulsing heavily.

  ‘We’re here,’ the Blacksmith said.

  In that state of exhaustion I felt as if the earth was pushing up against me, reaching up to claim and envelope my legs and head and back.

  ‘Do you hear me?’ he said. ‘You’ve made it.’

  He gestured, impatient for me to see. In front was the lowland creek that forked into the great southern river that led to Bluff. Across this creek and above it was a hill, then the saddle that would lead to the valley, to the prophets and the Order’s place. While I took this in the Blacksmith pulled his boots over his bloodied feet. Watching him I was glazed with exhaustion, the pain throbbing in my entire body, my feet.

  For a half-hour or so we simply sat, the Blacksmith waiting for me to get up. At length I felt physically able, but could not.

  ‘Get up, Edward,’ said the Blacksmith. ‘You’ve made it.’

  I couldn’t. I was remembering John’s face, the look that told me he had never expected to see me again.

  The Blacksmith looked at the sky to gauge the daylight we had left. ‘We can rest another hour. Then we’ll go back.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I can’t go back.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m for Bluff,’ I said. ‘I’m going to the town.’

  He shook his head. ‘Why—what?’

  ‘It’s not right,’ I said. ‘My reasons are never good enough. I’m not an Orderist.’

  He watched me for a time. Then he shook his head, tremendously fatigued. ‘Not now, Edward. I cannot.’

  ‘Very well.’

  We sat in silence a little longer. I panted just to sit upright.

  At length I faced him again. ‘I want you to
have my hut and land until the end of your service.’

  ‘I cannot,’ he said.

  ‘You must. I want you to take it.’

  He shook his head. ‘This is all wrong,’ he said. ‘Look, just come back. Get yourself home and healthy and safe, then make peace with your conscience. Eat something and rest, then, when you’re better, you can talk about it with John, with the prophets.’

  ‘I cannot do that,’ I said. ‘I am beyond all that.’

  ‘Be practical.’ With a great effort, he summoned a further argument. ‘Look—I know the Order’s not exactly right. Your brother’s death—that shouldn’t have happened. That’s not the right life. But the Order—the Order is broadly right. We work in gardens. We listen to birds. It’s a moral life, and we live it outside, somewhere close to where God is.’

  ‘That’s good,’ I said, to placate him, and I touched his shoulder. ‘You’re right, Blacksmith. You go on. I’ll sleep here the night. Please take my land and hut. And if you see me again, don’t be held to any friendship. Let me have your scorn, if it’s needed. You deserve the rewards of Order life.’

  He shook his head again, slow and huge and resistant. ‘This is not right. This is foolish. Why is your conscience important now? After all you’ve said.’

  I said nothing.

  He got up. Because I couldn’t stand, I could not take his hand and elbow and shoulder, as I should have. He straightened and plunged into the creek and surged across. Without looking back he faced the hill and began tramping up it. Watching his large frame, the bags and ragged clothes hanging off it, I knew I’d taken the best of his life.

  That night I remained at that spot. I sheltered under a low tree, curled and starving in an unthinking shape. In the morning I had a little more strength. I pulled some watercress from the creek and ate it, my teeth grinding on the mud and grit, its rank taste.

  I faced the hill across the creek and above. In my sleep I’d come to know I would never make Bluff. I was not that resilient, could not brave whatever pariah existence I would be allowed there, architect of my own brother’s death, and defector from the Orderist cult the entire town hated. I would not survive that.

  I would wait out my service instead. I could do the last remaining eight months. If the others shunned me, even if they lectured or persecuted me, I could bear it. I was not proud. I’d get back to Glasgow. They would have to send me back.

  Inching through the cold creek, I came out the other side. I attempted the hill. Halfway up it I wrenched off my boots and threw them away and resumed, barefoot. Shortly before the saddle I encountered the Blacksmith. He’d camped there overnight.

  ‘You made it,’ he said, rolling up his blanket.

  ‘You waited,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t think anything of this,’ he said. ‘Do not think less of yourself.’

  I shrugged and watched him dully as he shouldered his bag. Then he walked ahead, and we crested the saddle, began the descent with bleeding feet. At last the huts of the community came in sight, the sloped and ordered vegetable plots on the valley flanks. Some of the people came out, shading their eyes to watch us walk. To his credit the Blacksmith didn’t stride ahead, didn’t put distance between himself and me behind him. Silently I thanked him for it.

  Slowly and without speaking we limped down between the highest vegetable plots. The people were within earshot now. I could see their faces. They knew it was me, they saw the Blacksmith. They did not come running up.

  THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

  Dick sprinted over the hummocky field, six men trailing out behind him. They were all miners, all quick and game, but none were as fast as Dick. He’d combusted so quickly into the lead; every year at the fairs he leapt clear in the first few yards, and always they flailed along behind. The nearest of them now was O’Brien, who’d once boxed Dick in the pub—or tried to. That episode had not ended well for O’Brien. Now he shadowed Dick over his right shoulder. Dick bore him no ill will, he merely knew that O’Brien would not win, just as he had not won the attempted fight.

  Only forty yards of race remained. A thick rope marked the finish-line. Dick thundered on towards it.

  His lead was considerable, but he was not comfortable. It hurt to breathe. This distance felt further than in previous years. A feeling like fever spidered his chest and arms.

  At the same time, his mind was wandering. Up ahead, two clots of men stood at either end of the rope. There was a pair of women, as well—and Callaghan. Dick was due money from that old man. He’d owed Dick money for months, and when he did pay, it was a fraction of what was owed, either at the general store or the hotel. Yet Dick could not thrash him as he did other men who cheated him. Callaghan was the craftiest man in the locality, neither as sick nor as old as he made himself seem. Right now he was looking away from the race, stooping at the shoulders like some condemned and sodden ewe.

  There was a dip in the field and Dick stumbled into it. He had not been concentrating. O’Brien gained and immediately Dick ran to the right to force him wide. There was no excuse for the tactic, as the race led straight along the riverside without a single turn, but it was successful. Obediently O’Brien ceded territory and speed, falling away to the right and out of the range of Dick’s elbows.

  In this configuration they thrashed on downfield.

  There was the shaking sound of their boots, their breathing.

  The last time Dick and O’Brien had contested this closely, O’Brien was swinging his fists in Dick’s pub. Having drunk himself stupid, then spiteful, O’Brien flung a glass at another miner and pushed him to the floor. Standing wildly in the centre of the pub he’d yelled abuse at Dick, who came immediately from behind the bar and ducked the haymaker O’Brien aimed at him, lifting him in a bear-hug and carrying him to the muddy expanse outside, where he dropped him. The next time O’Brien met Dick he’d been cowed and smiling.

  Now Dick was within ten yards of the rope, and suffering. His chest was in riot. He strained towards the rope, he pushed hard with his legs, he thought he might vomit, then he thundered through, O’Brien coming after, then the others. Heaving, Dick recovered with his hands on his knees while the men who’d held the rope laughed at the noise he was making.

  ‘There’s a bullock gone down,’ said someone.

  ‘Having a baby there, Seddon?’

  Dick didn’t respond, did not stop his bent-over gasping until O’Brien came up to shake his hand.

  Dick made some banter with him and, as his breathing returned, involved the other men, gathering them round him. So many of them owed him money; it made them convivial. O’Brien stood quiet and unobtrusive at the rear. He was the kind of man, Dick thought, who’d be content to laugh forever at the jokes of other men; he was well-suited to mining, its relentless punishments.

  At the edge of his vision, Dick was aware of Callaghan’s silent presence too. The old man was not participating—each time Dick glanced his way Callaghan looked in a far direction. It made Dick uneasy. It didn’t help that his stomach was already rough from the running. He’d not run that fast in so long; his insides felt uncertain.

  In the week following it was stifling hot but the men wouldn’t come down from their claims, so Dick took the beer to them in a barrel he’d roped to his back. The barrel’s weight was huge but he made nothing of it as he walked through the claims, standing while the miners drew off beer into billies and pannikins. Some paid on scratch but most, on Dick’s insistence, paid there and then.

  Dick lightened the barrel among the more populous and richer claims on the river fan, then went up the side way that led to Callaghan’s lean-to and a few other hopeless claims. Searching the river outside Callaghan’s place he found a pool to keep the barrel cold, savouring the shock of the water on his hands as he lowered it in.

  Then he turned to face Callaghan’s lean-to. It was perched on the river-terrace behind him, the sack that served as the front door pulled to the side. As he approached the shack, Dick heard the old man
before he could see him.

  ‘Hello Seddon,’ said Callaghan.

  ‘Do you have any money for me?’ said Dick. He still couldn’t make out the old man. It was very dark in there.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Callaghan. ‘Not today.’

  Now Dick saw him. He was tinkering with an old and badly bent horseshoe. Dick didn’t bother asking him about it. Callaghan didn’t have a horse—scarcely any miner did—but the old man would find a sale for it just the same.

  ‘You owe me money, Callaghan,’ said Dick.

  ‘Well,’ said Callaghan, looking up this time and past Dick to the river, as if the matter of his debt were an old and imponderable one that might be solved out there.

  ‘Would you like a brew, Seddon?’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ said Dick. ‘You don’t have to make anything.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Callaghan, ‘sit down now. Let me do you a brew.’

  Reluctantly Dick stepped inside. There was nowhere to sit, so he stood with folded arms, trying not to watch Callaghan while he raked the fire. The old man’s legs were so thin, showing bonily through his trousers.

  ‘So what really brings you, Seddon?’ said Callaghan.

  ‘I came for my money.’

  Callaghan smiled. ‘Well, there won’t be any money today. Maybe tomorrow, eh, Seddon?’ Again he looked out the door at his goldless, tilled-over claim. ‘Lord willing, tomorrow will be my help.’

  He fussed over a billy and water and finally poured tea into an enamel mug for Dick, keeping the rest for himself. With a dull feeling Dick realised that Callaghan was about to drink directly from the billy. To avoid looking at that he drank his tea immediately, searing his throat all the way down.

  ‘Now, Seddon,’ said Callaghan, ‘I might ask you some-thing.’

  ‘You’ll want the answer for free too, I suppose.’

  Callaghan laughed. ‘I might at that,’ he said. ‘I might.’ Leaving his drink untouched he shambled to the door. ‘Just a little job out here.’