The Burning Land

by John Fletcher

  ‘Don’ say nuthin if you don’ wanner.’ The hand stroked. The neck was taut as wire. Mary took a deep breath and said what she had wanted to say for so long. ‘I still love yer. Whatever those bastards did.’

  Lorna was shuddering uncontrollably. A fat tear escaped and rolled down her cheek.

  ‘Easy, girl, easy …’

  Something broke and tears flooded silently down.

  ‘Tha’s the way. Let it all out. Tha’s the way.’

  Lorna mumbled something through stiff lips.

  ‘Watcher say?’

  She tried again. All Mary heard was, ‘Guilt …’ She was shocked. ‘You got nuthin to feel guilty about. Wasn’t yore idea, was it?’

  ‘I should have died.’ Lorna’s teeth were chattering. Mary could just make out the words. ‘I wanted to.’

  She held her, enfolding the shaking body of the girl with her tenderness. Lorna’s tears soaked into her dress.

  ‘I love you.’ She meant it absolutely, the declaration a balm. ‘Whatever happened can’t change that.’

  Lorna choked and sniffed. ‘Nothing happened.’

  ‘Tha’s right.’ Cradling her in her arms, recognising the lie.

  Lorna moved away from her. ‘I should hae died,’ she said again.

  ‘Don’ say that!’

  ‘I should. I’m empty. There’s nothing inside me. Nothing.’

  Mary had to say it. ‘Not even for me?’

  ‘For no one.’ Speaking calmly now. She seemed not to feel the hurt she was causing or perhaps did not care.

  ‘It’s early days yet,’ Mary said as much to herself as Lorna. ‘You’ll git over it.’

  ‘Aye. Mebbe.’ A deep breath. ‘But there’s anither thing.’

  The summit of the knoll was fifty yards square, level and densely covered in bush. They cleared only what was necessary to make room for a hut. When they had felled the trees they needed they selected the four with the straightest and strongest trunks and trimmed away the branches. They dug holes six feet deep where the corners of the hut would be. It was murderous work—never before had the land been broken—but they managed it eventually. They manoeuvred the trunks until the butt ends were over the holes.

  ‘No’ the problems start,’ Andrew said.

  They took the first trunk, lashed a stout rope to the end furthest from the hole and ran it over the lowest branch of one of the nearest trees. They hauled together on the rope until the end was clear of the ground. With the heavy trunk teetering on the edge of the hole, Andrew ran to position the butt and hold it while George continued to haul on the rope until at last, when their eyeballs were bursting from their heads, the trunk slipped with a sigh into the hole. George secured the rope to keep it upright, they shovelled the loose soil back into the hole and tamped it down.

  They were exhausted by the time the first upright was in place but forced themselves to continue, muscles groaning, sweat pouring from their bodies, until the other three were done. They rested, panting and wiping their brows, looking at what they had achieved.

  ‘Don’ look much,’ George said.

  ‘Ye think no’? That’s the real hard work finished. The rest’ll be easy.’

  By now it was evening and the fire shone out of the gathering darkness as they walked back down the knoll to the camp site.

  ‘How’s it goin’?’ Mary asked.

  George slumped on the ground by the fire and took the cup of tea she offered him. ‘’Ard an’ slow,’ he said wearily. ‘’Ard an’ slow.’

  ‘But getting there,’ Andrew added. ‘We have the uprights in place.’ He saw Lorna watching him from the far side of the fire, her fingers twisted in her lap. ‘Like the spot we’ve chosen, do ye?’

  ‘It’s grand.’ She laughed a little. ‘What was that ye said on top of the hill when we first arrived?’

  He stared at her, puzzled. Her eyes rested on him, their expression hidden by the movement of the firelight.

  ‘I dinna mind what I said.’

  ‘“May we prosper and be fruitful here.” That was it.’ She laughed again, the sound strange somehow. ‘I’m sure ye’re right, Andrew. I’m sure we’ll do that.’

  ‘I pray so.’

  That night, sitting over the dying coals after the others had gone to bed, she told him what she had already told Mary—that she was pregnant. He had wanted it more than anything in his life but now he stared at her in an appalled silence. ‘Ye canna be sure.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘It’s nae long enough.’

  ‘I’ve missed,’ she said. ‘Dinna talk to me aboot long enough.’

  ‘But that means …’ His voice died, mind grappling with dates, hopes, suspicions.

  ‘Means what, Andy?’

  She had started calling him that, too, since she had come back. He hated it, had hated the others calling him it. Andrew was his name. Now his wife, too, was saying it. He had thought to reprimand her when she had first done so but it was such a little thing. He had been trying to be gentle with her after her ordeal so he let it go. Now it had become a habit.

  ‘I wish ye would use my proper name,’ he said irritably.

  ‘I like it,’ she said. ‘It suits ye fine.’ A pause. ‘Means what, Andy?’

  He felt life was getting away from him, that this day that had seen the culmination of everything he had striven so long to achieve was becoming one of uncertainty and loss.

  ‘I need to know,’ he said.

  ‘Know what?’ A look of such innocence. He could have wept, bedevilled by doubt.

  ‘Wha’ happened with yon men. I ken it’s no’ easy but …’

  ‘Nothing happened.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Nothing at all.’

  He did not believe her but wanted to, oh, so much.

  The memories he had tried to forget returned to plague him. The dark hut, the outlaw lying dead on the floor, Lorna crouched against the wall, arms and legs tucked into her body like an unborn child. Wearing a nightgown. That was all. Dirty and torn, barely preserving her modesty. Not that one should blame her for that, in the circumstances.

  She had been in such a state that, later, when he was able to do so privately, he had helped her wash. There had been bruises.

  Now she said nothing had happened.

  Dear God, he cried out in anguish, how can I know? It could be mine. If what she says is true, it must be mine. If …

  ‘Ye mind the time,’ she said. ‘The night before you rode off to find the river crossing.’

  He had never forgotten it, the way she had cried out, startling him, shaming them both. He would not admit it. ‘I dinna recall it.’

  ‘Ye mind it fine,’ she told him.

  That was another thing. She was much quicker to contradict him now. It was something she had never done before. It was something no decent woman did.

  ‘That was when it was,’ she told him. ‘I felt it happen. That was why I cried out.’

  That was something else he did not like. She was too quick to talk about things that were best left unsaid.

  Something must have happened for her to be so changed. More than ever he was convinced of it.

  ‘So when is it due, this child?’

  Cold despite his efforts. He could not bring himself to acknowledge parentage, not yet. As to the joy he had anticipated so often, that was far away indeed.

  The next day Andrew and George continued to work on the hut. They used their axes to groove the timber they intended for the wall plates. After they were secured to the uprights they took the big two-handed saw and spent hours cutting the rest of the timber into heavy slabs which they slid into position between the grooves of the upper and lower wall plates. They inserted the last slab, anchoring the whole wall into place, and secured it top and bottom with two of their precious nails.

  They grinned at each other: it was a good moment.

  They repeated the process with each of the remaining walls, leaving spaces for one door and two windows. By the time they finished
the day was gone.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll put in the partitions and the roof,’ Andrew said. ‘We should mebbe use bark for the roof. There’s no’ enough long grass for thatch. Besides, I’m no’ keen on it. One spark and the whole lot goes up.’ He glanced restlessly across the valley at the line of distant hills. ‘I wish we’d finished today.’

  ‘No rush,’ George said, expressing his life’s philosophy. ‘The weather be ’oldin’. Tomorrow will do fine.’

  ‘It’s no’ the weather I’m thinking aboot,’ Andrew said. ‘If I dinna get to the land commissioner’s office and register our claim someone may beat us to it.’

  He looked at the valley with something like the lust he had once felt when eyeing his wife. The idea of someone staking a claim and taking away from them what he had already come to regard as his own appalled him. ‘I think mebbe I’ll ride out tomorrow,’ he said. ‘The hut can wait. I shall na rest easy in ma bed until we’ve registered our claim.’

  ‘What did he say when you told ’im?’ Mary asked.

  ‘He doots it’s his ain.’

  Lorna knew Mary wanted to ask but could not. She might not have told her even if she had been certain. As it was there was no point in saying anything.

  ‘Now it’ll be your turn to look after me.’

  ‘You know I will. With all my ’eart.’

  A man needs a son, isn’t that what Mary had told her? The next generation, that’s what you live for, isn’t it, to see your blood carry on into the future? A son to leave the property to. Andrew had wanted a son so much. Poor Andy, she thought bitterly. Now there’s a child and he doesna know if it’s his ain or not. She felt nothing.

  We should never have left Scotland, she thought. Then he would have known. It’s his ain fault.

  ELEVEN

  Andrew reached the crown lands commissioner ahead of any competition, paid the ten pounds licence fee and made provisional registration of their claim.

  The commissioner had an opulent office. Paintings on the walls, a Turkey rug on the floor and a large mahogany desk with a wooden plaque bearing his name in letters of polished brass: JCC INGHAM.

  ‘A big piece of land, Mr McLachlan,’ Ingham said. ‘Are you sure you can use it all, eh? Absolutely sure?’

  He was powerfully built and flamboyantly dressed, with the supercilious voice of a gentleman and an irritating habit of repeating those of his phrases he deemed of sufficient interest or importance. Andrew disliked him on sight but took care not to show it. The commissioner was a powerful man. People could claim as much land as they liked; the lands commissioner decided how much they would get. Andrew had heard of claims cut by ninety per cent. He didn’t want that to happen to him.

  ‘We’re planning a big run, sir,’ he said, suitably humble.

  ‘You certainly are.’ The commissioner rechecked the measurements. ‘That’s over a hundred thousand acres,’ he said. ‘One hundred thousand acres, Mr McLachlan. You’ll need an army of sheep to stock that.’ He chuckled indulgently.

  The back of Andrew’s neck grew hot. ‘We’re planning to have that.’

  ‘How many do you have now?’

  Andrew hesitated. ‘We’re just making a start, ye ken.’

  Ingham raked him with blue eyes that were not easily fooled. ‘How many, Mr McLachlan?’

  ‘Five hundred head is all.’ Andrew knew he had thrown away his chance of a kingdom.

  The commissioner raised an eyebrow. ‘When were you planning to add to that number?’

  ‘In time.’ It was the best he could do.

  ‘In time, Mr McLachlan? How much time? A week? A year? Ten years?’

  ‘As soon as we can.’ Stolidly, inwardly seething.

  ‘I see.’ The commissioner stood. The meeting had been a disaster. They would be lucky to end up with five thousand acres. Andrew’s dreams were dust.

  ‘I shall be out your way in a few months. We’ll have another look then, shall we? Another look?’

  Officials, Andrew thought. Jumped-up nanny goats. Aye for the big man. No time for the rest of us. Disconsolate, he headed for the door.

  As he reached for the handle, the commissioner spoke again. ‘Mr McLachlan …’

  Andrew turned warily. ‘Aye?’

  ‘You may be interested to know you are the first man, the first man ever, Mr McLachlan, who has registered a claim with me and answered my questions honestly. It was not easy for you. I want you to know I think it was most commendable conduct. Most commendable. We need settlers of your … integrity. Good morning.’

  His head returned to the papers on his desk.

  Andrew went out into the sunlight buoyed by a sudden, bright joy.

  Perhaps it had not been such a bad meeting, after all.

  It left him with enough confidence to carry on building. They finished the house first. The kitchen with its stove and bark-clad chimney was built separately, for fear of fire. They built a stable, a byre for the cattle, a workshop, finally a chapel.

  ‘Do we really need it?’ George was sick of building.

  Andrew stared him down, unsmiling. ‘The Lord’s house. My concern is we should mebbe have built it first.’

  When it was finished, he nailed a cross defiantly above the door.

  ‘We need help,’ Andrew said then. ‘We leave the sheep to wander without a shepherd, we’ll lose them.’

  ‘Where can they go?’ George asked, as easy-going as ever.

  ‘Into the stomachs of dingoes and natives is where.’

  ‘We’ve seen neither.’

  ‘They’re out there, George. Never doot that. If we have no one else we’ll have to stay out with them ourselves, you and I. We’ve got too much to do here for that.’

  ‘We can’ afford no shepherd,’ George protested. ‘They fellers be askin’ fifty pound a year to come to outlying parts like this.’

  ‘I’ve an idea aboot that,’ Andrew said.

  Next day he rode into Jim Jim. The settlement had not existed when they first arrived. It was growing as more settlers moved into the district but was still little more than a store and a few bark shacks.

  When he came back another man was with him. He was tall and thin, with a skimpy loin-cloth. His spears rattled as he ran beside the horse.

  ‘A black man?’ George gasped.

  ‘Ye said yourself a white one would cost fifty pound a year. Bannerji will work for rations and a hut to sleep in.’

  George shook his head dubiously. ‘I dunno …’

  ‘We’ve nae choice. We canna leave the flock to wander by itself.’

  ‘Speak English, does ’e?’

  ‘O’course he speaks English! Simmons at the store put me on to him. Worked on another run north of here but felt like a change. He’ll know the local tribes. You ken how difficult it is if we canna speak each other’s language. Bannerji will solve that problem.’

  ‘There bain’t no local tribes.’

  ‘They’re here, George. We have nae seen them, that’s all.’

  They built a hut for their new shepherd three miles up the valley and brought him supplies once a week—meat and damper, the same food they ate themselves. To begin with Mary was inclined to be sniffy about making bread for a black man but soon came to accept it. It was better than having the men away for days and nights on end.

  To begin with Andrew rode up most days to check on how things were going but Simmons had been right, Bannerji knew his job. Every day he let the sheep wander to feed, every night he mustered them to protect them from the dangers of the dark. Soon Andrew was sufficiently confident to leave him alone most of the time, although he still rode up the valley two or three times a week to gloat and plan and dream. His love affair with the land showed no signs of diminishing.

  In May, seven months after Andrew’s first meeting with him, Lands Commissioner Ingham and his retinue arrived in the valley.

  Lorna was working in the patch of dusty soil they had cleared for vegetables. It was not much of a garden but it was all t
hey had and it was Lorna’s job to look after it.

  Matthew, four years old and sturdy, was off up the hill on business of his own. It was safe enough—they had seen no dingoes at this end of the valley. As for the natives, they came and went. So when she straightened her aching back, watching Matthew’s small figure pelting down the hill towards her, her first reaction was not alarm but curiosity.

  Matthew’s eyes were wide, blue flames in a grubby face browned by the sun. The life here suited him, seemed to suit them all for there had been no illness—so far, she reminded herself, crossing fingers.

  ‘What is it, boy?’

  ‘People,’ he said. ‘Men.’

  At once she thought, bushrangers.

  ‘Horses,’ Matthew said. ‘They’ve got a cart. As huge as this,’ stretching his arms wide and almost toppling over in an attempt to show how huge it was, ‘and three men. With guns.’

  A cart. Not bushrangers then. Must be another party of settlers. There would be plenty of them heading south.

  Ten minutes later the new arrivals appeared on the crest of the hill above the valley and began their stately progress down the slope towards her. She watched them, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun, the other supporting the small of her back. She stood with legs apart, swollen belly jutting beneath the coarse spread of her dress.

  Those men with carbines, she thought. Not settlers. Soldiers. She could not imagine what they were doing here. The man riding at the head of the column was powerfully built with chestnut hair curling to his shoulders. He wore a hat with a yellow feather in it and rode a magnificent horse the colour of his hair. She remembered Andrew telling them of the lands commissioner and his show-off ways. Over the months she had forgotten about him. Apparently he had not forgotten them.

  Andrew was working with George in the workshop. She bent her head down to Matthew. ‘Run and tell Uncle Andy the lands commissioner’s come.’

  Matthew looked at her, eyes grave as his mind tried out the new words. ‘Lan kmisher?’

  ‘That’ll do. The workshop, mind, no’ the house.’ She slapped him gently on the bottom. ‘Off ye go, now.’