Several turns of bad luck had led Johnny and his band to this place, this dry paddock in the middle of nowhere. Needing food, water, ammunition, other supplies, he had entered a small town, pretending he had no reason not to be there, trying to give no clue he was outlawed. He was, after all, a Settler; he could just go shopping. He could take one of the Natives with him, as long as the Native was happy pretending to be a servant, a tracker, an assistant, and – most importantly – obedient.
It was a game they called master and servant; they had played it before, more than once, shopping with their stolen money for legitimate goods. How strange, to have plenty of money, which was easy to steal, yet nothing to eat, for you could never steal enough food.
It was all going well until they walked out of the general store with their purchases – Tucker, loaded up with groceries. All faces looked their way. Everyone in the street – under the verandahs, in the shade of the few emaciated trees – was staring at them. Even the Natives, silent and dressed in rags, stared or was that a smirk on one of their faces? Beside Johnny on the wall of the store, where he had somehow missed seeing it on the way in, was his face, staring expressionlessly from a wanted poster.
It was not the first time they had fought their way out of a town, though it was the first time there had been only two of them. Only the fact that nobody expected Tucker to be armed, to be a damned fine shot with a pistol, saved them. They ran from that town, guns blazing, slippery and quick.
Tucker had needed both hands to fight their way out; the groceries were unwieldy, he dropped them. Their wild risk came to nought – they ended the day with as much food as they had started it. Ammunition had been wasted in the desperate escape, and they had not yet managed to purchase any. They were even worse off than they were before.
More desperate than ever – or at least hungrier, which was much the same thing – they had executed a ridiculous armed raid on a homestead not far from town. The Settlers, husband and wife, could have no idea that the gang could not spare the ammo to make good on their threats, even if they actually wanted to. This time there was no wanted poster, no armed response, no danger to the raiders. Neither was there any food.
Running headlong from that town Johnny’s gang had become acutely aware that they had become a bit too conspicuous. The raid on the farm had not helped matters in the slightest. There was no doubt the Troopers would be looking for them, looking hard this time. They had to run and run, further away from civilisation than ever before. Not for the first time the gang had to fall back on the hunting and gathering skills of the Natives, making Johnny feel useless, making Johnny paranoid that one day they would decide they wouldn’t need him.
They had run, and run, further from the towns, further from Johnny’s comfort zone, further into the alien, Native landscape. The trees of his homeland – spreading slowly from the towns and homesteads – disappeared, leaving nothing but the alien, Native bush. Deeper and deeper into the woodlands and prairies they moved. None of them had made it that far before, not even the Natives. Eventually even the trees had thinned; rocks and sand and grass – that was all they had to look at besides sky.
Everything was alien: the people around him, the trees, the prickling grasses, even the soil and rock itself. The rock was a deep carmine, the sand was redder – a beautiful yet disturbing earthy scarlet. The overlay of grey-brown and golden yellow plants somehow cast a purplish tinge upon the land.
The dung fire was surprisingly comforting, giving emotional comfort to his friends as always, yet this time it was working on him as well. To his Native friends fire meant home, one was not really at home until a fire was lit. Sitting by the burning dung, for the first time he understood: fire gave a sense of place, a feeling of home. Or, at least, his Native friends were his home, and fire was home for them, which was near enough. Tucker and the others, as lost as him, had taken him home.
Even Tucker, who had an almost supernatural ability to find food, had been unlucky on the last hunt, capturing nothing but a single starving rabbit – all bones under its mangy, soft fur. It provided them nothing but some flavour for a weak broth, some meat to gnaw off the bones, eating slowly so it felt like more. Yet soup was better than water again, water and nothing, boiled muddy water from a collapsed dam. It is generally understood that people can survive about three weeks without food, and only three days without water. He felt he would not last even that long.
It would therefore be a couple of weeks, at least, before the gang would come close to death. Close to death from starvation at any rate; there were other less expected, less well-scheduled ways to die.
Johnny’s quality of life, on a downhill slide for years, had reached almost rock bottom; he could see little way it could get worse. His spiritual life, on the other hand, had been looking up; he had friends, closer than he had ever experienced before, and for the first time in his life he did not hate himself. Their poor condition, the lack of food, had brought them closer together. They were a team, even a family, more than ever before.
Small consolation for the roaring in his belly.
Chapter 9
We have always been here
We are still here
We are not going anywhere
– Anonymous
Jacky knew the Troopers were right behind him. He could almost hear their heavy booted footfalls, expected any moment to hear the ‘You are under arrest’, or the shot in the back that might come instead. He knew there was only a matter of time before they found him; felt little hope by then that he would continue to avoid them. He could already feel the shackles on his wrists and his ankles, the cold steel ring around his neck. He had been in shackles before – punishment for small infractions. They would take him to prison; he had met people who had been there, broken and bent by years of hard labour. He actually hoped they would take him to prison if he was caught, otherwise they would take him back to the settlement, where his master, unrestrained by the law or by witnesses, would punish him far more vigorously than the Troopers, than the law could. There was no time to scavenge, no time to hunt or to gather food. There was only time left to steal.
Nobody was home at the silent homestead as he riffled through their relatively empty pantry. The buildings had been built with skill using local materials but age was beginning to show: there were cracks in the wall hastily caulked, and there was no doubt the roof would leak in heavy rains. Unfortunately, the lock on the door had been sound – strong even – and the windows also locked.
Inserting a stout branch into a tiny gap, Jacky had been able to lever a loose plank out from the wall. At least the mission had taught him something useful. It was a tight fit but he had just enough room to crawl in, to drag himself in sideways.
He needed food that would travel well. Flour was good, he still believed that despite the evidence, even after his last experience with it. Grabbing half a small sack of it, he threw it in his bag. Bacon – that would travel better than other meats – he grabbed that too, hoping it was less salty than last time. Having no idea how long he had before the Settlers came home, he ate everything he could that would not carry well – fresh fruits he did not completely recognise, cheese, cold cooked meat. He would, he thought, eat until his stomach hurt.
Eating fast, without care, without his habitual survivor’s paranoia, he did not notice the Settlers were home until he heard the click of the door opening behind him. Turning, mouth and both hands full of food, he would have cut a comic figure if things were not so desperate, the danger not so severe. The Settler woman did not react for a moment, so surprised to see a Native in her normally inviolate kitchen, how does one react to such an invasion?
She screamed, a formless wail, a screech without words, a reaction without any thought. His way of entry forgotten, Jacky, terrified, blinded by the sound of screaming, the fear of being caught, headed for the only open door he could see. The Settler woman was in his way; in
the narrow doorway, she bounced off the doorframe, leaving a smear of blood where her face had collided. Jacky bolted through as she fell to see a man moving towards him, carrying a small axe.
Jacky was as surprised as the Settler was when he grabbed the axe handle just below the head and pulled the weapon free. There was no thought, no skill displayed by either of them. Swinging wildly, holding the axe awkwardly, it was not a surprise that he missed. The Settler dived, almost fell, desperate to escape the axe, fear stripping him of all grace. There was nothing in his way so Jacky again ran for it, heedless of the hue and cry behind him.
The food, too much food, sat heavy in his stomach as he ran; he nearly vomited with the breathless effort of running with his stomach so overladen. His sack was heavy, and it fell repeatedly from his hands. He slung it over his shoulder, a shoulder that still hurt from the impact with the Settler woman. The axe was a useful thing but in his panic, its weight, its size, the length of the handle getting caught in the bushes was more of a hindrance than anything else. He dropped it, not even noticing where it fell.
Not for the first time he ran.
Tonight Johnny and his gang would eat. Tucker had appeared out of the blinding light of the setting sun, with the limp carcass of a kangaroo, larger than Johnny had ever seen, draped across his shoulder. This was proof, surely, that they were far from the Settlers; large roos did not live long near towns. What it was, more than proof they were far from the town, was something substantial to eat.
None of the standard, expected complaints of ‘roo again’, in a hundred variations, emitted from anyone’s lips that night. ‘Stupid kangaroo saved my life again,’ Tucker drawled unexpectedly, leaning back against the tree as he swallowed a satiating mouthful.
His face turned in the campfire light as his deep-set dark eyes absorbed the confused and startled looks on his companions’ faces. He chuckled and closed his eyes, looked ready to sleep, not to say any more, when suddenly he spoke again.
‘We did not know of the arrival of the Settlers, not at first. It took them a long time to come to the place where we lived, and we never left there, not by choice.’ His drawl gained a dreamlike tone; he was elsewhere as he spoke. None of the others wanted to interrupt him, so rarely did he speak. ‘We were out hunting, my brother and I, in the bush. We were walking home – I was carrying a kangaroo, a big kangaroo. I was slower than my brother because of that kangaroo.
‘My brother shouted, I didn’t hear his words, then there was a loud noise. I had never heard it before, and his shouting stopped suddenly. I was worried. I put down the kangaroo, carefully under a tree, walked quietly to where my brother was. He was on the ground, dead, I suppose. He was surrounded by Settlers. I had never seen Settlers, never seen anyone but my own people. He was lying on the ground; they stood all around him holding long things. I had never seen them guns before neither.
‘He must have stumbled into them, musta not been looking where he was going, idiot. We’d never seen Settlers before. How could he know to look out for them? I hid in the bushes; I was alone and there were more of them than there was of me. They left my brother there. I didn’t watch where they were going; they were not going to my home, so I guess it didn’t matter.
‘My brother, he was dead, there was nothing I could do, I needed help, I went home. I was only a kid at the time, not yet a man, I needed my parents. Leaving my brother, leaving the stupid kangaroo, I ran home. When I got there –’ for a moment his pained breathing was all they could hear ‘– bodies everywhere, broken, burned, bleeding.
‘They were all dead, everyone there, all my family, all my friends, everyone I knew. The Settlers must have killed them. They didn’t even bury them, pile them up, burn them, nothing, they just left them there, everywhere, wherever they fell. I kept tripping over them.’ Tears ran down Tucker’s lined face; he seemed not to notice them, not to care. ‘I was alone a long time then – couldn’t even bury my family, my brother, not alone, too many . . . they would hate that, not even being buried. It was too much for me, I was just a kid and those Settlers might have come back.’
He laughed unexpectedly, a pained laughter, intermixed with tears, deep, heavy tears. ‘That stupid kangaroo was heavy. It saved my life making me walk so slow.’
Silence descended and held on. But for the crackling, the yellow light of the fire you could believe that there was nothing out there but darkness. Then Crow Joe broke the silence.
‘The only way I could find something to eat was in the circus.’ His voice sounded pained, unusual to hear for those who had known him so long. He was almost defined, normally, by his lack of emotion. ‘More of a zoo it was, my parents and I were all there; not my sister, she was already dead, raped and dead, left for dead, maybe not dead, how would I know, I was only a kid.
‘Yeah, probably dead.
‘Daddy taught me to throw an axe, throw a knife, throw a stick, throw anything and hit anything. Then they killed him – they paid him in drink until his liver died. Mummy died too – working for them, it just wore her out. I was there alone, entertaining the monsters, like a performing pet,’ he spat the word, nobody dared flinch back from the spray of spittle.
‘Hated myself, hated everyone, fought everyone because I couldn’t fight myself. Got in trouble, so much trouble for fighting. One day I was sharpening an axe when the circus boss yelled at me for fighting. I didn’t mean to hit him with it, I just lost my temper, I threw it to scare him. Then I had to run, and I will always be running now.’
‘I shot my sergeant,’ Deadeye interjected, ‘when he had me guarding some of my own people. We arrested my people, who knows what they did. I could not stand them in chains like that.’
The group fell into a tense silence, each trapped in their unpleasant memories, each unprepared to traumatise the others with questions. Dip and Dap had not spoken, they seldom did at all. The weighted glances they gave each other said it all – there were too many bad stories to tell. They did not even remember when they had been taken to the city.
Sparks and embers flew lazily from their fire, flying up to join the stars slowly marching overhead. Each man stayed lost in his memories until one by one, staring at the night, they fell asleep.
Rohan and his posse could move faster now they had a real tracker to follow. Many days of travel, many days of searching and he had allowed himself to come to the conclusion that Mick was completely useless. How he had managed to make a living from hunting, from tracking, was a complete mystery.
They had picked up a tracker in a settlement. The Settler who had provided him, his master, assured Rohan that the man was good, exceptional even. ‘He will take care of you,’ he said. ‘He’s the best, used to work for the coppers.’
He was the darkest Native Rohan had ever seen: carved from mahogany, with black curly hair and deep-set black eyes. He certainly looked like a tracker; his eyes seemed to simultaneously stare into the distance and watch the ground. It was doubtful that anything useful, any information, would ever escape those eyes. Rohan wanted to trust him, needed to trust him, because what he needed more than anything was to find Jacky.
A day later saw Rohan riding behind the Native who, seemingly terrified of the mounts, was refusing to ride. The trooper and his deputies were limited to the walking pace of the Native. However, they were doing well; he had found the track immediately once they returned to where they had lost it last, and since then they had not lost it once. It was a winding trail, heading vaguely east.
Rohan, for all that the tracker’s appearance made him uneasy, found himself warming to the Native. Maybe if all Natives were like this he would have less cause to hate them.
It was hot, it was always hot, and the Native was the only one not suffering. Rohan shared out the last of the water. When that ran out they would be in deep trouble unless they could find more. ‘Tracker,’ he shouted as he rode, then spurred his mount forward to ride beside the Nati
ve, ‘is there any water around here?’
‘There’s water everywhere,’ the Native said, ‘you just have to know where.’
‘We need water.’
The Native’s shoulders flinched up and down in an almost imperceptible shrug and he walked off to the side of their path while Rohan followed. Selecting a tree that looked no different to any other the tracker stopped.
‘Water there.’
‘Water where?’ Sergeant Rohan was incredulous. It was just a tree.
‘Need axe.’
When Rohan returned with the axe and his deputies, the tracker took a swing at the tree, chopping into it in a place that looked the same as any other. Again and again he swung, cutting a hole in the trunk of the tree. Dropping the axe and cupping his hands he caught the water that dripped out and drank it.
Rohan was right behind him with a bottle, the dripping was painfully slow but after an eternity standing there his bottle filled. They were there for some time, by that tree with the dripping wound. All of them filled their bottles, all of them drank their fill. There was a faint taste to the water – Rohan couldn’t identify it – the taste of tree, he supposed.
Rohan, despite himself, was beginning to almost like this Native.
For two days Rohan and his deputies followed their Native tracker through a tight, claustrophobic labyrinth of rock and trees. How he followed the track, when there was nothing on the ground but rocks and leaves, continued to be a mystery. He never got lost, never backtracked. If the tracks they were following went into a dead end he knew about it and didn’t follow.
They would never have lived through it without him. Totally reliant, they were beginning to trust him; they almost forgot what they thought of Natives. Other Natives could not be trusted, but this was ‘their’ Native.
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