The Great Plains

by Nicole Alexander

  His last stop was the chicken coop. Half of the hens had survived, although most walked around the yard as if in a daze. The rooster watched him as he stacked the dead chickens outside the pen.

  ‘Bit of a mess, eh?’ Jerome said. The rooster cocked its head sideways as one hen grew unsteady on its feet. Grabbing the weak bird he strode around to the Blums’ chopping block at the side of their house. A small axe was wedged in the wood and he pulled the blade free before wiping the surface clear of dirt. The hen barely squawked as he lay it down. Swiftly chopping the head off, he let the bird go. The bird flapped weakly and took half a dozen steps, blood spurting from its neck before falling to the ground.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  Jerome turned to see Mrs Blum, her son Michael by her side.

  ‘Well?’ Mrs Blum held a sack of groceries. Her broad forehead slipped away to a narrow receding chin, a characteristic shared by her seventeen-year-old son. Over her shoulder Jerome saw a car do a U-turn and head out of the farm. It was a good five hundred feet away and, with the mounds of dirt piled up between the outbuildings, was obviously worried about getting bogged.

  Jerome gave a crooked smile. ‘It was about to die so I thought –’

  ‘So you thought you’d steal it?’ Michael replied, folding his arms across a broad chest.

  Jerome shook his head. ‘No, I –’

  ‘Damn Injun.’ Michael snatched the bloodied hen from Jerome. ‘We leave you alone for one darn minute and you’re stealing.’ He turned to his mother. ‘I told Pa not to let them stay.’

  Mrs Blum nodded in solidarity, her eyes were ringed with dark circles and there was a nasty scratch along one side of her face. ‘This place is ruined,’ she pointed a finger at Jerome, ‘we’ve had our own catastrophe and you people can’t even look after the animals.’

  ‘But the storm came so fast and it was so bad.’

  Michael shook the blood from the chicken. ‘You ain’t telling us anything new. We were on the road when it hit and this idiot driver ran straight into us. Pa’s with the doctor. He’s got a busted arm and nose, can barely breathe what with the dust and all, and then we come back to this.’

  ‘You’re meant to do something for your board and keep,’ Mrs Blum told him. ‘Look after the place at least.’

  ‘Damn Injuns.’ Michael gritted the words through his teeth.

  ‘You’ve been starving us out,’ Jerome said bitterly. ‘Rationing our corn when I’ve seen you carting it into the house to burn in your fancy oven. You’ve cut back on everything and here I am stacking up your dead animals and trying to help and you come back and –’

  ‘Get out!’ Mrs Blum yelled. ‘Get off our land, we don’t need no Injuns and half-breeds here no more. Why, you should be grateful that decent folk were prepared to give you somewhere to live.’

  Michael spat on the ground. ‘Yeah, get out.’

  Jerome walked past them and then swung on his heel to face the boy. ‘Don’t be telling me what to do.’ For the first time in his life Jerome felt the urge to punch someone. He took a breath, his fists curling.

  ‘Don’t do something you’ll regret, Injun,’ Michael antagonised.

  Jerome took a breath to steady his anger, instead hate welled. He shoved Michael in the chest, sending the boy reeling backwards. When he lifted his fist and knuckle hit flesh, he let out a savage yell. Michael Blum fell back against the wooden chopping block, his neck striking the edge of the hard timber.

  ‘What have you done?’ Mrs Blum screamed, rushing to her son’s side as he toppled into the dirt.

  Jerome dropped his fist. ‘I didn’t mean to, it wasn’t my fault.’

  The boy’s mother knelt on the ground. ‘Michael, can you hear me? Michael?’

  ‘Is he all right? I’ll fetch the doctor.’

  ‘Look at my boy, look at him! If you’ve harmed him …’ Her eyes were cold.

  Michael’s arms twitched. The boy gave a shudder and stilled. Mrs Blum gave a heart-breaking sob.

  Jerome backed away from the lifeless boy, slowly at first and then, realising the enormity of his crime, he began to run.

  Part Six

  Have you seen the bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by? Blackened log and stump and sapling, ghostly trees all dead and dry; Here a patch of glassy water; there a glimpse of mystic sky? Have you heard the still voice calling yet so warm, and yet so cold: ‘I’m the Mother-Bush that bore you! Come to me when you are old?

  ‘On the Night Train’ by Henry Lawson

  Chapter 26

  April, 1935 – near the banks of the Condamine River,

  Southern Queensland

  Chalk fell to his knees and vomited into the grass. The need to expel the shadowy mass from within his stomach buckled and jolted his body until exhaustion overcame him and he fell back into the grass to stare, unblinking, into the midday sun. Sweat lathered his skin. He’d been lying in the grass since Walu, the Sun-woman, lit the dawn fire, the red ochre with which she painted herself spilling onto the clouds to create a magnificent sunrise. Since then Chalk had followed her lighted torch from east to west with his eyes, waiting for his body to heal. There was a time many moons ago when he could foretell the future, or at the very least divine whether the force that clouded his days was good or bad. Now the matter that flowed through his body like a weaving rainbow serpent was no longer capable of predicting events. The change was gradual. Much like the ageing of his own mortal body, the dulling of Chalk’s senses was a measured process.

  The loss could be pinpointed to a single day ten years ago when Wes Kirkland and Evan had ridden away from the injured Hocking. In the sacred place of his ancestors, while attempting to heal the injuries caused to his friend, Chalk had felt the presence of the medicine man from across the seas. This shaman’s skill was undeniable, yet his life was conflicted, for the road the man followed led away from those of the healer and in the end he’d lost his way. There had been good and bad in this man’s life. Right and wrong had forged the path he walked, but even back then as Chalk sat cross-legged next to the wounded Hocking, he knew that the medicine man who came to him as an eagle was long dead and now hovered in the place between earth and sky. This man who’d lived across the great waters had a warrior’s essence and somehow Chalk knew that their worlds would soon be connected.

  Flies were gathering on the small pile that constituted the contents of his stomach. Wiping his mouth, Chalk sat up and looked to the east, where a thin line of cloud marked the movement of the shallow rain band that had rushed past during the night. The clouds barely stayed long enough to wet the ground, but the season was favourable and the grassy plains would carry a hint of green through the winter, ensuring feed for all. With a creak of knee joints as he stood, Chalk whistled up his grazing horse and that of his son’s and flung his wiry body into the saddle. It was time to ride westward to the river before Walu overtook him and put out her torch.

  The boy had been an unwilling student initially, refusing to acknowledge the skills that belonged inherently to their line. Had the boy a brother, Chalk may well have turned away from Jim, for much of the medicine he hoped to pass on could be learnt if the individual was willing. Jim, however, was strong in untapped abilities. As his father had done, Chalk had found the boy in his dreams and whispered to him to come to the woman he intended to lay with. He’d not been as diligent with the rest of his offspring. There were other children, weak male children, who withered long before they grew shadows and females who were passed on to the care of others when their mother died. Jim was the last of his male blood.

  Chalk let the horse have his head and with Jim’s mount tethered to his, the animals trotted across the rain-softened ground towards a line of trees five miles away. It would take his son a number of days to recover from the period of fasting he’d been subjected to over the previous month. The last time he’d visited the boy, Jim was curled between two exposed tree roots muttering the incomprehensible. Chalk refilled the
boy’s water bag, stoked up the nearby fire and, prising his son’s teeth open, had pushed a mixture of roasted rabbit meat and tobacco weed into his mouth. If the boy was to pass the initiation, he would have unknowingly entered the trance-like state that would eventually conjure visions. What these were would be proof of the boy’s success.

  By this afternoon Chalk expected to be riding back to Condamine Station with his son, where they would report to Evan that Jim had completed his walkabout and was ready to resume work. The head stockman would be disgruntled but pleased. The property was in the middle of shearing and Evan would never say no to extra hands at this time of the year. The latitude shown to them was not only due to their ability as stockmen. The district assumed that there was no foul play involved in Hugh Hocking’s disappearance, for the gossipers talked of his thievery and only four men knew the truth of what happened that day.

  An hour later Chalk reached the riverbank. The fire was out. There was no sign of his son. Dismounting, he checked the great roots that had last embraced the boy and then followed the footprints in the sand that led to a few items of clothing near the water’s edge. The waterhole was deceptively still on the surface. This site was said by his people to be home to a giant yellow-belly. The great fish rode the swift river currents beneath the surface, mating with any female that swam the waters that flowed from the hills in the east.

  Jim rose from beneath the brown waters gasping for air. Brushing dark hair from his face, the water fanned out as he moved quietly from the depths of the waterhole to stand at the water’s edge. The youth had the look of his mother, his features softer, neater, altogether more presentable than his scruffy father. The boy’s ribcage stood out prominently, highlighting the healing scar, a ragged cut to his chest. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes bright.

  Chalk grimaced. He didn’t know how to swim and the boy had never been taught, nor would he have ever considered entering the water where the great fish lived. ‘It is time to leave this place.’

  ‘Hocking came to me,’ Jim told his father as he tugged trousers over river-wet skin. ‘In the Dreaming I saw him, he waits for revenge.’

  ‘This is not our business.’ The boy appeared to have lost half his body weight, yet he spoke strongly and looked well. ‘We did what we could for him and said we would not be involved further, no matter what happened.’

  The boy thought on this. ‘I didn’t see the winged shadow you speak of.’

  ‘Then it is not the time,’ Chalk replied. ‘You still have much to learn. The All-father will decide when you can see what you wish to see. For the moment I alone must bear that burden.’ Untying the lead rope from the spare horse, he waited as his son mounted before doing the same.

  ‘I saw two children, babies,’ Jim explained as they left the riverbank and began riding through the trees. ‘One white, one dark-skinned. One would live and one would die. The survivor will have great medicine within.’

  ‘I think you have seen much for one so young. There is promise within you but for now you must close your mind to these thoughts and return to this world.’

  Jim promised to do his best. ‘Do you know why the winged shadow comes, Father?’

  Chalk had been thinking on this for a very long time. ‘To protect another.’ He didn’t add that he remained unable to decipher whether the spirit meant ill. ‘I can see a time in the near future, son, when I will no longer walk this earth. My bones suffer through winter and my heart flutters like a wounded bird in the heat. When I am gone you should leave this place, I fear we have stayed too long already and your future is beyond.’ He gestured westwards.

  The air vibrated with energy. The horses whinnied. Chalk looked into the void that had suddenly appeared before him.

  Jim tugged on the reins. ‘Have you seen something, Father?’

  Chalk swallowed. ‘There is another who will want what you admire and, although she will be yours for a short time, in the end she can belong to neither of you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I only have a name,’ Chalk replied. ‘Abelena.’

  Chapter 27

  April, 1935 – Condamine Station, Southern Queensland

  Wes rode out across the paddock to where a stand of trees offered shade from the afternoon sun. It seemed autumn was yet to convince the bright orb in the sky that it was time to ease back on the heat, for it still felt like a summer’s day. After nearly a decade in this new land, Wes remained at odds with his environment. The summers were too darn hot and the winters not cold enough. Some years it felt as if there were only two seasons, and they were often fierce. It didn’t help that Wes continued to compare this new climate to Oklahoma.

  Oklahoma. Now there was a place a man felt alive. A northern wind could turn a warm spring day cold, it could be hot and humid and dry and wet in a single day. Even the thunder sounded different. Here in Australia it rolled and heaved from afar, noisily moving forward, like some creeping giant ready to attack. Back home it was as if the clouds were angrier. They often hung low and dark in the storm season, the thunder echoing loud and harshly and at any stage a tunnel-shaped twister could appear in the distance. That was one thing Wes didn’t miss.

  He flicked a fly away as his horse rubbed his rump against the rough bark of the tree. In the distance he could hear the sounds of the men working on a section of fence a mile or so away. Most of the stockmen were whinging about having to do repairs around the property, complaining that they were employed to work with sheep, not hump rolls of wire, cut lengths of timber or repair gates or railings in sheep-yards. This was the standard refrain from the men at this time of year as they readied for shearing and Wes was used to their grumbling. He knew they didn’t like him much. He was an outsider. The man who had replaced Hugh Hocking.

  On his arrival at the property all those years ago it was obvious that the men had held Hocking in high regard. Whether the men knew of Hocking’s thievery or not, Wes could never be sure but he figured the stockmen may well have admired Hugh even more if they’d known of his doings. That was the strange thing about these Australians. They could work from dawn to dusk with no complaints when they felt like it and they were convivial. Wes had seen two shearers fight like thrashing machines last year only to learn that they were best friends the following day. Everyone was a mate or a cobber and a mutual understanding lay beneath the rough, capable men who ran Edmund Wade’s pastoral empire, but they had scant respect for authority. Wes Kirkland may have been addressed as Boss but the real power lay with Evan Crawley, the head stockman. And Wes didn’t trust the man one inch. He never had, which was why he’d ensured Evan was by his side the day Hocking met his maker. Evan was bound to Wes through murder, and that murder had guaranteed a smooth transition onto Condamine Station for Wes. Besides which, he never had liked Hugh Hocking and in the end Wes only had Edmund Wade’s interests at heart. Which was why he’d written to his patron to inform him that he suspected someone was stealing stock from the property again. The tally book at crutching time had alerted him to the discrepancy and he was quietly keeping an eye on everyone.

  But he hadn’t ridden out here to think of Hocking or missing sheep. Tobias had sent a number of telegrams to Australia over the past couple of days. It was difficult to gauge his old friend’s attitude towards the scandalous news, for Tobias’s concern was only for his father. It appeared that Serena Wade’s son, Jerome, was wanted for the murder of a homesteader’s boy in the Panhandle. Sheriff Cadell, having been the bearer of the news to the Wade residence, had pointed out that the dead boy’s parents had provided a detailed description of the entire family, including an Indian known as Uncle George and a girl called Abelena. The information was further corroborated by the fugitives’ surname, Wade.

  Wes recalled Tobias’s most recent correspondence.

  ‘This news has aged Father considerably. He blames himself for not having helped Serena all those years ago and is intent on finding Abelena and rescuing her by means of sending her to a
n institution for re-education.’

  Wes had lain awake most of the night thinking of his old friend Edmund Wade. He couldn’t understand why his benefactor would even bother trying to find the half-breed, not after the way her mother Serena had behaved the day she and her Injun friend had come to their home demanding money. Wes had never met a better man than Edmund Wade. Edmund had been like a father to him, which was why Wes had agreed to leave his beloved Oklahoma and come to Australia. Now he felt useless. Far better he was back home with the sheriff, trailing the no-good Injun cousins. If he caught up with those outlaws he’d lift his rifle and squeeze the trigger real slow. That would put an end to the lot of them. Hell, it should have been done years ago. Instead, here he was in the middle of nowhere – outback Australia. Wes wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve and urged his mount to move on.

  Horse and rider walked towards the line of trees shimmering in the afternoon haze. The river lay ahead, languidly flowing amidst wide banks and thick trees, and it was in this direction Wes headed. Condamine Station’s south-western boundary zig-zagged across the river; the edge of that section of the property ending with a run of smaller holdings that lined the road heading south to the village of Riverview. Most of these blocks were dairy farms, small inconsequential businesses that had survived the depression through sheer guts and ingenuity. From what Wes heard, the poor ate rabbits and subsisted on vegie patches, but farmers at least had milk, could churn butter and make bread. In some respects they were a lot better off than their city counterparts.

  At the tree-line the horse snuffled the air and then began picking a path through the timber. During his sleepless hours last night, Wes had decided to pursue negotiations with a land-holder that he thought would at least take Edmund’s mind off the murdering cousins. There had been talk before his move to Australia of Hocking trying to buy one of the dairy farms due to this particular block having a shallow river crossing which favoured sheep. Wes had since sent the head stockman, Evan, on a number of occasions to press this stubborn man called Todd into selling his measly farm. All attempts had failed. The land maps showed the Todd property was small, a subsistence block if ever Wes had seen one. A good offer coming after the harshness of the depression years could well be greeted favourably, if not enthusiastically. Not only would access to this section of river speed up the process of moving sheep to and from distant paddocks, it would no doubt buoy Edmund Wade’s spirits as well.