‘We’re set,’ Aunty calls from the back of the cart.
‘We go!’ Tommy Lin jigs the reins and the cart rolls on out through the gate.
In the back of the cart, I see Aunty wrap a blanket around Abe.
A mizzling rain begins to fall.
Mary turns Night in a circle. ‘Nothing can be the same,’ she says. ‘Not after tonight.’
‘No,’ I say.
‘But they’re not going to scare us away,’ Mary says to me. ‘They tried to after Otto’s death, and they’ll try it again now, but we won’t budge.’
‘We won’t budge,’ I say.
I button up my coat, pull my hat onto my head. Mary does the same.
The rain is softening up the dirt and the tracks made by our neighbours are washing away. The forest trees that edge the gate and run down to the long paddock, shake in the swirling wind, but between the trees, it is still and dark.
Suddenly, I feel it. That chill on my neck. I look to Mary. Her eyes are already on mine.
We open our mouths and breathe out mist.
‘They’re here,’ I whisper.
‘Yes,’ Mary says.
‘Can you hear the sound?’ I ask.
‘Beneath the rain. Listen.’
I hold still, but hear nothing.
We wait.
Nothing.
Mary sighs, nudges Night forward.
‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Tonight, we’ve got to look after Abe.’
She rides ahead, out along the road.
I keep staring at the dark between the trees.
I shiver, nudge Ghost forward and gallop to catch Mary up. An owl
Hawker
1822
hoots. She and the women are gone. The dark forest has taken them. I hesitated too long. Only now do I wonder what they are up to. All the campfires are around the lake, yet the women were moving inland. Why? This place has too much mystery. I don’t understand it, only how I came here. I turn and follow Vince and Lambskin. We tramp up to the hut in the watery dark as the full moon sails through ghost trees. My mood is heavy, as if I am sinking down into a pool of thick black mud.
Back at the hut we drink the last of the grog. Poole and Jed are already asleep, lying on rugs in front of the fire. Lambskin joins them. I tell Vince that come dawn I will harvest the corn. He claps me on the back. He is in good cheer. I spread out our sheepskins to one side of the hearth. Vince lies down, and is soon lulled into the land of dreams.
I can find no rest and sit in the open doorway. Watch an owl perched in the tree. Its bright eyes staring. There is no grog left to blur my vision and all I see on the road ahead is luckless. For what purpose must I work my time out in drudgery? I will be a cripple when I get my ticket of leave, never mind my freedom. There must be another way.
I am a fool. Building up hopes and visions, but of what? A warm bed and food for my belly. Even a dog gets that.
Too much has been stolen from me.
What kind of justice transports a man from his land? What kind of justice treats a man like a dog? What kind of justice treats a man worse than a dog?
Manhood suffrage is what is needed. Laws made by your own kind could be some kind of fairness. One vote one man and no buying your way to parliament. That would be the start of something. But if manhood suffrage arrives it will be after my time, not before.
Night visions stir the sleepers. I turn and gaze at their faces.
The firelight makes them men I might choose to be with instead of blackguards I am bound to while I wait out my time in a prison land where the heat hurts more than English damp ever could.
It was not manhood suffrage that had me transported here. It was one spark of passion in a London lane, late one night when I should have been back to Surrey. When I had planned to be back to Surrey. One spark of anger after drinking two days straight so my wits were against me, and the spark against a man who refused to pay what he owed, owed fair and square for a business sold, from me to him. A punch at his refusal to pay, and a falling that landed wrong so his head smashed on the stone. The sentence I got was to end my life away from all human kindness.
That money I was owed was for a future with a lass who knew how to shed light on even the darkest days. The arrangement was made with her father. I was meant to return to Surrey and set up a new press close to her home. But that wife and the family I should have had is lost to me forever. The final blow came when I learnt that my brother took up where I left off. He married my sweetheart. The bitterness of that news lost me a brother too.
I get up to search for grog that might be left in the packs. Poole must have some stashed as his thirst is unquenchable. I peer into bags, rummage through the stores, but if Poole has grog hidden I cannot find it.
Back I go to the doorway, look up and see dark wings, hundreds of them, flapping in the night sky. Pelicans flying free to some unknown destination.
And here I am trapped on land.
The birds are freer than I will ever be.
The new day will bring no more than a march to nowhere.
Each day the same.
Each day my prison.
I stare at the gun, heavy in my hand, and know what I must do.
In the field, corn tips catch the light, like thousands of candles lit as if to herald my departure.
All good feeling has leaked away.
It is clear to me now that I will not see the sunrise.
One pull of the trigger and I’d be as free as the birds.
What might Appin ever offer that could compare? Nothing.
True freedom comes from death. Only death.
I should do it now.
Pull the trigger now.
I turn to the sleeping men.
They look in pain.
Miserable faces.
Why not end their misery too?
Why not do them this kindness?
It would be a mercy to us all. The kindest mercy. They would know no more fear. Their sweet departure could be my best purpose in life.
I rise and load my gun. It takes time with my banged up hand but the idea of freedom has taken hold. Every man must leave his mark and destiny has claimed this as mine. There is a shiver going through me.
They would be confused in waking after the first shot. I would have time to reload.
I set myself ready and settle the gun on my shoulder. The dogs rise from the steps outside and start barking. I turn to the doorway.
Vince wakes, rolls over.
‘What is it?’ he asks.
‘What?’ I say.
He is looking right at me. A brother better than my own by blood. I could take all his pain away now. Shoot him right through the eyes. It would be over quickly.
Then shoot Jed, then Poole.
It is our actions not our fears that make us a man. I can be a good man, a man who is a true friend, who does what no one else dares. I can free us all from the slavery of life.
‘Hawker?’ Vince says.
Freedom is always hard fought for.
‘Hawker,’ Vince shouts.
My gun is aimed at him.
The others stir from their grogged dreams.
Bats flap past the open door and wing it across the field. Dark agents of the night.
The night harbours possibilities not gleaned in the day but it also illuminates the boundaries that shape us.
I hear a call, like a bird but not a bird.
I walk to the door, keep my gun aimed at Vince. In the field, several natives are plucking corn.
Man is never free, always he is manipulated through physical coercion; if not coercion, there is hunger, brutality, or the misinformation that is distributed in pamphlets or pulpit. But now is the opportunity I have to free us from false living.
‘HAWKER!’ Vince shouts.
He cannot make out what is happening.
I look down. My mutts barking at my feet. I realise, as if in a dream, that they have been by me for some time.
My
finger is on the trigger.
What is this wild place that fills me with terrible purpose?
It is some dark magic turning me away from my aim.
I shake my head to rid myself of cursed thoughts.
It is the place I must leave and those who inhabit it, those who work its dark magic. I must shoot the natives in the field and get to Appin. Leave this forest and never return.
‘HAWKER!’ Vince screams.
‘Blacks!’ I cry and swing my gun towards the open door.
The dogs run ahead as I stride from the hut.
‘Go,’ I shout, running down the steps.
The dogs sprint off in pursuit of their prey.
I walk across the dirt and on through the corn. It slaps my body like a tide on the turn. Leaf crunch underfoot.
Up ahead I spy wretched thieves still slashing husks.
The cheek. They think I won’t shoot.
I lift the gun, wedge it into my shoulder, pull the trigger. I almost fall from the blast.
‘I have one,’ I shout to Vince.
But I am not sure I have.
Vince comes up behind me. ‘Reload.’
I want to go on but he drags me back to the hut.
‘Reload man, reload.’
Inside the hut the others are shadows shouting.
‘Blacks,’ I yell. ‘Arm yourself.’
There is new purpose to my actions.
I kick at a chair, grab the ammunition, as if in a fever.
How many Blacks can I shoot?
I bite off the top of the cartridge and I am pouring the powder into the pan as I run back out. Jed blocks my path.
‘We will tell them to leave,’ Jed shouts.
Vince comes forward, he is tying a knife on the end of his gun.
‘It is our weapons they will answer to,’ Vince says.
He pushes Jed aside, runs across the threshold and down the steps. I follow Vince and we, two men in search of justice, stride into the field. My left hand aches and I must stop to pour the rest of the powder into the muzzle, shove in the ball and stuff down the paper. My ramrod sticks and I have to wriggle it out. When I get it free I ram the paper, ball and powder down to the breech of the barrel, pull out the rod, and return it to its hold. I pull the lock to full cock, wedge the gun into my shoulder, and walk on. Alongside me, to the right, Lambskin holds a spear in one hand and a native axe in the other. Poole, on my left, swings a horse whip through the air. Vince, further on from Poole, has shouldered his rifle. Only Jed has stayed in the hut.
I spy a Black, moonlit and still on the edge of the field. Does he taunt me? The devil to that!
‘Name, name, name,’ I call.
No answer.
I aim and pull the trigger.
Vince calls, ‘A hit?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
This time I am certain.
The Black has fallen between the cornfield and the trees. He is moaning, so not dead.
Vince runs to me. ‘Are there more?’
I peer into the gloom.
Nothing moves.
‘Any more?’ Vince asks again.
‘They have gone,’ I say, fired up by my hit.
We walk to the edge of the field.
Vince runs ahead to the whimpering Black.
‘Damn,’ Vince shouts.
‘What?’ I yell.
‘A woman.’
The woman screams. A warning perhaps.
I reload and fire into the trees in case any of her kind are lingering. ‘Scat now or I will shoot you dead,’ I shout, and stride up to Vince.
Lambskin and Poole run to us.
The woman starts to sob, the sound fills the night air.
The dogs bark at her.
Vince tells Lambskin and Poole to scout the forest boundary.
‘I do not want a spear through my chest,’ Poole says, his face packed with fear.
‘If they were still here, there would be a spear in you now,’ I say.
There is authority in my voice. I am the man that protects the cornfield.
Vince orders Poole and Lambskin on their way.
They slink off, searching the nearby trees. The dogs run with them. But Poole and Lambskin are quick to return.
Vince picks up the net of corn that lies alongside the woman.
‘Nearly a peck,’ I say. ‘Would have wiped us clean.’
The woman’s body is twisted, hair over her face. She is lying in the dirt. Her back arches as she tries to crawl away. She cannot go far. There is blood pooling beneath her. She must have been facing me when I shot her.
I want to know which one it is and go to turn her over.
‘Do not touch her,’ Vince says.
‘What?’
‘You will have to report at Appin tomorrow. To the constable.’
What is Vince doing? Making it all seem wrong.
‘Brooks would not want his corn stolen,’ I say.
The dogs run around the woman, barking.
She screams into the dirt.
Poole and Lambskin back away and stand at the edge of the cornfield.
‘Better if you had shot a man,’ Vince says, between gritted teeth.
‘What difference?’ I say, but do not believe it.
‘There’s a difference in the eyes of a magistrate,’ Vince says. ‘Easier to handcuff a woman. That is what the law now asks us to do with native thieves. Give them warning.’
‘This is their warning,’ I say.
At least Brooks will know I am a hard man. At least that. I will leave this place. Why not? Others have done worse than I have done here, and there has been no penalty.
Vince stares at the woman as she struggles to crawl forward, scratching at the dirt, whimpering. She makes no progress and emits one long moan, then slumps down, muttering in her language.
Vince turns to me. ‘I know what to do,’ he says.
He whistles to the dogs. They come to him. He gets down and rubs their necks.
‘Set to it,’ he says, kicking the woman’s leg.
The dogs lick him, not understanding.
‘What you doing?’ I ask Vince.
He grins at me.
‘Dogs mauled this woman,’ he says.
‘I shot her,’ I say. ‘Brooks needs to know that.’
‘No. Listen to me. The dogs mauled her is what we will tell the magistrate,’ Vince says.
‘Tell the magistrate?’
‘Leave Brooks to me,’ Vince adds. ‘I will get you to Appin.’
I see it now. See what Vince is doing. The fault for murder will lie with the dogs, not me. He has proved it now. He has proved he is a true friend.
‘Get her, get her,’ I shout to the dogs.
The dogs bark at me. Then they run around the woman, snarling and growling and pulling at her arms, so her body slides in the dirt.
‘Get!’ I say.
My biggest dog, the best hunter, rolls her over, snarls and rips at her stomach, tearing the flesh. The smaller dogs, drooling, bite into her thigh. She screams and gasps but has no power in her limbs to push them away. The dogs lift their blood-covered snouts and bark.
‘Good dogs,’ I say.
The woman turns her head to look at me.
She is muttering.
The hair falls from her face.
Only then do I see.
Her.
There, on her shoulder, the mottled bump that once so concerned me.
I squat down, feel something soft in me churn about.
Her.
I press my hand to the dirt, steady myself.
She groans and then sighs.
I see her eye flicker.
Her eye, judging.
Her eye, unforgiving.
I shake my head, clench my teeth.
There is no room for weakness in this place.
‘Not guilty,’ I whisper.
The dogs drag her away, but her head rolls back so she is facing me.
‘We must live by the quick
not by the deed,’ Vince says.
‘Yes,’ I say.
I stand and look back to the hut. I do not want her eyes on me. It is too late now. It is done now.
But I stamp my feet because there is a lightness in my head that I must heave away. I am some other kind of man now. The man Vince Byrne needs at Appin. The man Captain Brooks needs to protect his fields from thieves.
I spy Jed in the doorway, lit up by the firelight. I raise my rifle, so the moon catches it. I want to show him that we have shot a Black. Want to show him what men do here.
Jed turns and walks inside. Perhaps searching for his pup.
‘This night he is shaming me,’ Vince says.
He turns and with his knife, slices his wrist. Blood slithers out, like a seeping tide.
‘Hold out your arm,’ he orders.
I do as he asks. He cuts my skin and presses our bloodied wrists together.
‘Brother,’ he says.
‘Brother,’ I say, and feel a rush of heat.
‘We will say nothing of this deed,’ he says, solemnly looking towards the woman.
‘Agreed.’
I turn towards Poole and Lambskin, who are striding through the corn, making for the hut.
‘What about those two?’ I ask.
‘They will do what I say,’ Vince says. ‘They dare not do otherwise if they want an easy ride. Jed too. He may be weak but he is loyal.’
I do not tell Vince what I did to Jed’s pup.
It was yapping until the last bit of earth was shovelled on top.
One day I might tell Jed, tell him when he least expects it, tell him when the blow will hit hardest.
Or maybe not.
Vince never liked the pup and Jed’s whinging about the loss will set him on edge. Vince will be glad of my company. It is a small plan compared to the events of this night. A silent story for this unsilent night.
Human events are like rivers, they change course depending on circumstance.
I am safe now.
Safe.
Vince will get me to the Appin farm. No matter what magistrates may say. I am the man that saved the corn. I say that to Vince.
He orders the dogs back from the woman. They come away.
I stare at her.
She lies in the dirt, the moon soft on her face.
Her red lips are parted, her eye still flickering.
She is staring at my boot.
She thought she could outfox me and that led to her downfall.
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