At least there’s the river, George thought. As long as I d’stick to that I can’t go far wrong.
He had left camp three hours ago and lost sight of the last sheep half an hour after that. He seemed to have come a long way already but knew he had barely started.
So far he had seen nothing, which was what he’d expected. Mary was right. Somewhere in all this emptiness there had to be a station with animals and hands and the man who owned the run. Trouble was he didn’t have any idea where, except, like Mary said, the station had to be somewhere near water.
That didn’t mean it was on the Murray. There might be another river they knew nothing about. They didn’t even know how big the run was. The station might be a hundred miles away. In any direction. He would never make it for a hundred miles over these plains, even if he did know which way to go.
He had tried to say all this to Mary but had never been much for words. She’d gone off at him, like she always did, next thing he was setting out on what had to be the wildest of wild goose chases.
Even if by some miracle he found the station, what could they do? Charlie and his boys were long gone. Could they track them through this endless plain? Even if they did, those fellows wouldn’t give up without a fight. On top of everything, Lorna might be dead. You couldn’t blame the squatter if he decided it wasn’t his quarrel.
All in all, it seemed to George like a waste of time. Could be dangerous, too. Plenty of snakes on these plains. Tread on one and he’d be dead—a lonely death and painful, too, from what he’d heard. It didn’t bear thinking about.
There were other dangers. They’d seen no blacks but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. They’d probably been watching them for days. They could be watching him this minute. They’d killed plenty of men in their time, lonely shepherds, mostly. No one could be more alone than he was now.
He looked around apprehensively. The shimmering plain looked as empty as ever but that meant nothing. Any minute a group of gum trees could turn into a bunch of warriors with spears and throwing sticks.
He didn’t even have a gun because the robbers had left them none. Mind you, for all the good he’d been with a gun it was no loss. That was the real reason he’d not objected more strongly when Mary came up with this idea of him going for help. If he had kept better guard, they wouldn’t be in this fix. Truth was he wasn’t cut out for this sort of life. He should have stayed where he was. The routine at Inverlochrie had suited him far better than wandering like a lost soul across the countryside.
He trudged along, the plain spread out on his left, the river to his right. The undergrowth along the bank was thicker here. He wasn’t sure if that was good or not. There was more cover if he needed it but anyone planning to ambush him would have an easier job too.
The only thing he could do was stop thinking and keep walking. They needed help, never mind Lorna. Apart from that, if he went back without finding anyone Mary would never believe he’d tried. She would never say so but she would think he’d gone a mile or two upriver, sneaked into a bush and stayed there until it was safe for him to go back again. He knew he didn’t measure up to the standard she set in husbands. Too easy-going, that was his trouble. She was like a terrier. She took life by the throat and shook it.
Young Matthew took after her. Favoured him in looks, maybe—he’d be a big lad when he grew up—but you could see already he’d be pushy, just like Mary was. Liked his own way in everything. Good lad, though. A son to be proud of.
For the hundredth time he squinted around him. The sun seemed to have a western slant to it at last, although God knew it was still as hot as fire. He could see nothing—no animals, no buildings, no men.
Slowly, the sun set behind him. Shortly before dark he stopped for a rest. He had a good drink and refilled his bottle from the river before eating some of the food that Mary had put up for him before he left. Kangaroo meat and damper. It never varied. Well, it was meat, anyway. Tough, like it always was, but not too bad a flavour once you got used to it. Hard on the jaws, mind.
He’d thought he would rest a while, unroll his blanket and sleep, but after he’d been sitting half an hour he decided to push on a bit. The air was cooler now and better for walking and with the stars so bright he could see his way reasonably well. He’d heard the blacks were frightened of the dark and never went out in it. If that was so he’d be safer walking at night than during the day. He’d have to take his chance with the snakes but he’d been doing that all day and hadn’t trodden on one yet.
He plodded on through the darkness. He could hear the river chuckling as it ran between its banks. A reassuring sound. Funny how you could hear things so much clearer at night.
There was the usual whine of insects, once he heard the grunt and thump of kangaroos, but otherwise there was nothing.
A new moon hung in the sky like a shaving off a gold bar. He kept walking, tripping from time to time over rocks he had not noticed in the scrubby vegetation. He walked all night. The moon disappeared below the horizon. Birds began to squawk from the undergrowth. He heard the sound without registering what it was and was surprised when the sky ahead of him lightened with the coming of daylight.
When it was light enough to see clearly he sat down beside the river, took off his boots, stuck his feet in the stream and let the water run over them. It felt wonderful. His feet had stood up well and he was feeling surprisingly fit, all things considered.
Thinking he would rest for an hour before continuing, he lay back on the grass and closed his eyes.
When he opened them he saw a black face looking down at him.
It was not a subject that respectable people ever discussed but she had thought about it. Every woman on earth had thought about it, one time or another.
She sat her horse, looking at the slummocky huts, the filthy ground. The tiny clearing was foul with the refuse of three men too lazy or uncaring to bury it. The place stank. She could not tell if it came from the rubbish or was simply the miasma of the unwashed, foul-breathed men who lived here. The bush grew right to the timber walls of the buildings. Tree branches hung close above the sagging roofs and the light was dim and dismal. The weight of the bush, so close about them, had charged the atmosphere with a feeling of such evil that Lorna’s ears were filled with the panicked beating of her heart and she found it difficult to breathe.
Charlie reined his horse to a standstill and slid out of the saddle. He grinned up at her, blackened teeth jeering, and sketched a bow, broken hat in hand. ‘Welcome to our ’umble abode, my lady.’
‘Lady,’ Pat said and licked his lips. ‘She’s that, orright.’ He rode close and ran his hand up her thigh beneath her bunched-up skirt.
‘Look at that,’ Charlie chuckled. ‘See that, Billy Boy? Pat ’ere’s ’ungry for a taste.’ He began to unsaddle his horse. ‘You kin jes wait, tha’s all.’
Pat glared, hard fingers digging into her flesh. ‘I bin waitin’ all day.’
‘An’ you kin jes wait some more, boy.’ He carried the saddle across and set it on the trunk of a fallen tree.
‘Why?’
‘Cos tha’s the way it is. First things first, eh. Horses first, then the stuff we took from them farmers, then mebbe a nice bottle o’ grog. Somen to eat. Then we’ll see.’
‘I don’ want nuthin to eat.’
‘Listen to ’im, Billy Boy. I swear it’s love.’ He grinned up at Lorna. ‘You done some magic on young Pat, orright. Never known ’im say no to grub before.’
Billy Boy said, ‘Mebbe ’e’s thinkin’ of a different sort o’ meat.’
‘Mebbe ’e is.’ The jocular tone hardened with its usual frightening speed. ‘But ’e won’ get nuthin if he don’ take ’is ’and out of her crutch and git down an’ help us.’
Pat sat his horse a moment longer, smiling down at the older man. His fingers dug into the muscle at the top of Lorna’s thigh. ‘One o’ these days you ’n’ me’s goin’ to fall out, Charlie.’
Charlie spat. ‘
That day’s the day I buries yer. Now, git down an’ give’s a hand!’ He walked across and took the bridle of Lorna’s horse. ‘You, too.’
The stink of his body almost made her gag. She dismounted, knowing that for the moment any chance of escape was gone.
‘Sit over there where I kin see yer,’ Charlie instructed her. ‘An’ stay put, or I’ll tie yer up.’
No chance of escape at all, she thought. Not now. Later, perhaps, but who knew what would have happened by then. They’ll kill me eventually. When they’re bored with me.
She would have died now, if she could.
They took the stolen stores off the horses. They did not stack them neatly but flung them anywhere about the clearing. They lit a fire and cooked up the meat they had stolen, passing a bottle between them. They offered her neither food nor drink, seemed to have forgotten all about her.
The light shone on their faces, their wet lips and eyes. The clearing was raucous with laughter, the thick sound of voices speaking through full mouths. Beyond the firelight’s circle, the bush waited and watched. Close enough to touch.
She moved a few inches, as an experiment, towards the far side of the house.
No one noticed.
Again, moving so slowly her tired muscles cried out in protest.
If she could get away into the darkness …
Once she would have been frightened to go into the bush at night. Fear had a different dimension, now.
She moved again.
They would come looking for her, of course, but in the dark the advantage was with the hunted, not the hunters. She would never get away on foot but if she could lure them into the bush and double back, get one of the horses while they were still marooned out there …
It wouldn’t be easy. She had no idea where the river was. Perhaps, once she was well away, she could wait for daylight. Sunrise would point the way north.
It was a chance.
Another movement. Barely an inch, this time.
They’d finished the first bottle. Charlie slung it over his shoulder and reached for the next, already open on the ground between them. The bottle was up-tilted in his mouth.
Lorna ran.
Mary was terrified—for George, for Lorna, for the future. Most of all she was terrified that Andy would die and she and Matthew would be alone.
Andrew lay on a blanket in front of the tent, eyes staring at the sky. He did not speak or move. She thought he probably did not know what was going on.
She tried speaking to him but he did not seem to hear her and after a time she gave up.
‘Bad men hit Unca Andy,’ Matthew said.
The boy seemed to have recovered well from the morning’s events, although who knew what fears remained hidden inside him.
‘Why Auntie Lorna go off with the bad men?’
‘’Cause they took ’er with ’em.’
‘Why did they?’
‘I s’pose they wanted to.’
‘Will Auntie Lorna be coming back?’
‘I hope so, dear.’
‘Poor Auntie Lorna.’ A pause. ‘Will Unca Andy die?’
Dear God, I pray not.
She had a nightmare vision of them all dying—Andrew here, never stirring or speaking again, George and Lorna lost somewhere in the vastness of the empty land, herself and Matthew left to fend for themselves, weakening day by day as food ran out …
Come on, she told herself. We’ll be right. You’ll see.
From time to time she went to check on Andrew. He’s the one’s brought us so far, she thought. We’d be sunk without him. Every time she checked she was afraid she would find him dead.
Gradually the day passed. She thought of George, making his way eastwards along the banks of the Murray. Pray God he was all right. As for Lorna … God help her. They took her and not me because she had the guts to stand up to them and I didn’t. They wanted to teach her a lesson. All of us. Most of all, she thought, they wanted to prove to themselves what tough men they were. What had that terrible man said?
‘Be glad it ain’t you …’
She was glad. Guilt racked her but it remained true. When they took Lorna and left her, relief had bathed her like a fever.
She hadn’t thought of Lorna then but did so now. Not in detail, not of what might be happening at this moment, but how it must have been for her, riding off with the men, no hope of rescue.
I couldn’t have stood it, she thought. I would have died.
Before it got dark she lit a fire, heated some tea, gave Matthew and herself some supper, checked on Andrew—no change—and went down to the river. There was an overflow there, a shallow pool they could use without fear of the current. She would never forget the frantic search for Matthew after they’d left Goulburn.
Lorna saved him then, she thought. She saved my baby yet when those men took her all I felt was relief it wasn’t me. God preserve her and bring her back safe.
It was the only way she might be able to forgive herself.
*
George’s first thought was that he was either dead or would be at any moment. His second was to lie there and pretend to be dead already and so save them the trouble of killing him.
The first one quickly proved wrong. He wasn’t dead and for the moment at least no one seemed interested in killing him.
The second thought was no better. The man who had been watching him saw his eyes open and at once set up a clamour in what was presumably his own language.
There seemed no point in pretending to be dead when everyone knew he wasn’t so George opened his eyes again and looked about him. There were six of them—thin, black, naked, all carrying spears taller than themselves. A hunting party, he thought. They were jabbering away to each other but they didn’t look dangerous or even particularly threatening.
He decided to risk a movement. Slowly, with extreme caution, he sat up, making sure he was smiling at them for all his worth.
They drew together with a rustle of spears and he held his breath, expecting any minute to feel the point of one jabbing between his ribs. He spread his arms wide, opening his hands.
Still they hadn’t killed him.
He kept the smile going, cheeks beginning to ache.
One of the men looked at him and spoke. George shrugged, the language incomprehensible. Would they know English? Unlikely but worth a try.
‘I need help,’ he said, slowly and clearly. ‘You understand help?’
They looked at each other and at him. No good.
‘Another white man?’ Hopefully. He put his hand on his chest, then pointed out across the mirage-hazed plain, shrugged his shoulders, trying to put a question into his face.
Jabber jabber. Silence.
He was getting nowhere. ‘Look …’ He picked up a bit of stick and began to draw in the dust. First he drew a house with windows. Then sheep and a horse. The drawings weren’t much but he thought with luck the black men might understand what they were supposed to represent. He put in the figure of a man wearing clothes, a white man. Then, stroke of genius, a group of men with spears and another white man, a little away from the rest of the drawing.
He pointed to the second group, then at the men gathered about him and himself.
‘Me,’ he said. ‘You.’
He pointed at the house and animals. Once again he shrugged. ‘Where are they?’ he said.
He watched them as once again they talked excitedly together, and he thought perhaps they had understood.
One of the men pointed upriver, speaking rapidly in what might have been a question.
‘Yes,’ he said.
The leader gestured to him to get up. He did so, uncertainly. Once again the black man pointed upriver and spoke emphatically.
‘All right,’ George said. ‘The station’s up there. Thank you kindly for tellin’ me.’ He smiled at them all again. Must be showing every tooth I got in my head. ‘I’ll be on my way, then.’
He made to move off. A vociferous jabber stopped h
im.
Obviously that wasn’t right.
He looked at them helplessly. Whatever else, he mustn’t anger them. He couldn’t outrun spears, them either, probably.
The men gestured again. They closed about him. It looked like they were planning to take him somewhere.
He picked up his pack and they began to trot eastwards along the bank of the big river.
The bush was black.
After the frantic dive from the firelight into the darkness, Lorna fought her way through the scrub, colliding with trees, stumbling over roots. Thorns clawed her clothes, her skin. Branches slashed her face. One thicker than the rest gave her a savage blow. She staggered, blood trickling down her forehead and into her eyes. She smeared it away and blundered on, hearing yells and oaths echo through the bush as the three men came after her. The cut was stinging, her breath was tight in her throat, her left ankle jabbed needle thrusts of pain where she had twisted it. None of it mattered. All she cared about was getting as far away as she could before she stopped to hide.
She must have been two hundred yards into the forest when she slid beneath a bush in the bed of a dried-up creek and settled down to wait. Her heart pounded, her breath rasped in her throat. Looking back, she could make out the glow of the fire, the outline of trees black against it.
She settled as low as she could to the ground, hearing the layered detritus of the forest crackle beneath her weight. She fought to control her breathing as she waited, terror running through her veins like blood.
She could hear them from a long way off. Unlike her, they could make as much noise as they liked, hallooing to each other, trampling through the undergrowth.
In her flight she had tried to circle to the left of the camp, her plan to let them pass her and then double back and snatch one of the horses before they could cut her off.
They were perhaps twenty yards from her now, trampling and crashing through the bush. It might have been further—in the darkness distances were hard to judge.
They passed, pushing on into the bush. She waited, barely daring to hope. The noises began to diminish. Exultation trembled in her throat. Stealthily she gathered her legs beneath her. She took a deep breath, schooling herself to stand without making a sound.
The Burning Land Page 9