Coal Creek

by Miller, Alex

  . . .

  That first year went by and everything was quiet in Mount Hay, like the coppers at the headquarters on the coast had predicted it would be for Daniel and Esme and their two girls. An adventure holiday in the wild scrubs of the ranges for this city family. Daniel made himself busy in the office trying to put George Wilson’s piles of old records into some kind of order. I never seen Daniel without a fresh shave and a clean ironed shirt. He liked to see things sitting square and straight. I think he seen George’s records as the main challenge for him. Most people was friendly to them on the surface and Esme got the tennis club going again and Irie was a good tennis player and there was always some working bee or other Esme was trying to get people together for. But I think she soon began to see how people’s interest in what she was doing did not last long. Ballroom dancing was something she had going for a while. Then it drifted off and come to an end, like most other things she did. The Mount Hay women lost interest in her way of pushing and prodding them and they soon began to resent her and to laugh at her behind her back. I guess she dismissed their ways as of no account and that is what they resented. But many of them had the habit of laziness and did not want to change.

  Esme must have begun to feel a bit shut out by the other women and as time went on she turned her attention more to the police house and to her own family and began to leave the people of the town to get on as best they could without her help. Which they had been doing well enough before she come into the town. Esme got a vegetable and flower garden going at the police house for a while but the weather did not suit vegetables and the goats kept getting in when people left the gate open. Struggling with that took up a lot of her spare time for a while. In the first months Daniel went out exploring into the scrubs a few times. That is what he called it, exploring, like no one had been out there ahead of him. He set off on foot but I do not think he went more than a few hundred yards off from the house. He started out collecting plants and looking for rock paintings and sacred stone arrangements and that kind of thing. But his enthusiasm for it petered out and he began to spend most of his time in the office trying to get them records of George’s into a perfect order. He was impressed knowing I had spent pretty much my entire life out in the camps with my dad and his partner, Ben Tobin’s dad. He was always asking me which of the local Aborigines he should talk to for information about their beliefs and their way of life. I pointed him at this or that individual who I knew was going to tell him they did not know where the sacred places he was talking about was at. Which is their way. To deny knowing stuff when they don’t want you to know it. It is what most people do in my experience, black and white. It’s what we kids did at school when the teachers asked us something. I don’t know. You heard it every day. The Aborigines I sent him to put Daniel off the scent by telling him to go and see someone who they was having a feud with, just to get a laugh to see him bothering their enemy with his fool questions. They was so polite to him it was a wonder he did not see they was fooling around with him.

  I heard Daniel telling Esme one time that the Aborigines knew nothing about their own country and they all hated each other. There was always some fight going on between this or that family. Which was only natural. Daniel was putting together a collection of stone tools and I or anyone else could have told him where to find plenty of them things but I seen he liked to think he was finding stuff no one else knew about, so I left him to it. He was interested in things we did not care about and he liked to talk about his plans to everyone. But they did not wish to hear his plans.

  I followed Daniel one day on Mother. I had that mare from when she was a foal and I always called her Mother, which was to honour the memory of my own mother. Watching Daniel walking around in the scrub looking for stuff that day I soon seen he never knew he was being watched. I knew from that he was not the man for that country. A man for that country knows when he is being watched and he will make some sign to let you know he is on to you and he does not care if you are watching him or not and will go about his own business, and if you wish to speak with him then you will come up to him and say whatever you wish to say, but if you are just passing along then that is what you will do and you will not disturb him. But he will still make a sign to let you know he knows you are there. The old fellers, black and white, never talked or made no noise when they was riding through the scrubs and you seldom seen them get their horse out of a walk unless they was dogging a micky or heading a bunch of wild cows, but they seen everything and would come back over their tracks at the end of the day and pick up beasts or get honey from a nest they had seen in the morning when they was going out. They never said nothing about seeing beasts camped under the limes or seeing honey in a hollow crotch of a lancewood tree. They seen it. And if you had not seen it that was too bad for you. They was not going to tell you about it. The man who did not see such things was counted a fool, and what point was there in telling a fool something?

  If you was with Daniel in the scrub and he seen something he was quick to point it out to you, like he thought you had not seen it and he wanted to let you know he had seen it first. Like he was scoring a point over you. That day I followed him I watched him looking around but seeing nothing. He crossed my tracks that day without seeing them. I never told him I had been watching him and he did not know.

  . . .

  It was mid-morning and I was out by the side fence to the garden fixing the hang of the gate when Esme called me in for a cup of tea, which was our usual time for smoko. Daniel had gone down the coast for some meeting or other with his senior people in Townsville and the girls was at school. Sitting across from Esme at the table in the kitchen drinking my tea and eating the Anzac biscuits she had cooked that morning, I seen the way Esme was looking at me, her eyes on me in a steady way that made me feel I had better say something. I said, These biscuits are as good as my mother’s biscuits was. When I said this Esme gave me a big smile and she said back at me, You are very welcome, Bobby. We sat on again in silence a while and I was hurrying my tea to get back out to my work on the gate when she said, I would like you to read to me from the book Irie is teaching you with. Will you do that for me? I said I would do it gladly but I did not think I was that good a reader yet. Esme got up and she fetched the book from the dresser where it was kept with the other books and she set it in front of me and sat beside me so she could look over my shoulder. I did not feel at my ease with her sitting so close to me. She was a fine-looking woman and I had often admired her from a distance, but I would have been upset if she had ever guessed my admiration. I opened the book and cleared my throat and I began to read from the early part of the book, which I knew by then pretty well. As I read I could hear Irie’s voice reading them same words and it gave me confidence and I soon began to relax. When I turned over the page to go on, Esme put her hand on my hand to stop me and she said, Thank you, Bobby. I looked at her and seen she was moved by her thoughts. She took her hand off mine and closed the book and she said, I am very proud of you. I hope you know how welcome you are here among my family. I could think of nothing to say to this, so I said nothing, but looked down at the book and hoped we was done.

  From time to time after that, when I was about the place doing some chore or other, and the girls was at school and Daniel was in the office doing his records or making calls to the police in Townsville, Esme asked me to read to her and I did so. I would not say this become a habit with us, but it was something I began to enjoy, and I believe she did too. Being on our own like that in the kitchen with me reading and her listening the way she always did, as if it all meant something to her, it was like we had become friends. When I thought about it later on, I seen that after all her plans for improving Mount Hay come to nothing, Esme must have begun to see me as her one and only Mount Hay success. I had been learning from the beginning to please Irie, who I felt myself to be very close to, but soon I was also learning to please Esme, so she would not feel her belief in me was mistaken. We got used to each
other’s company at those times. I told her stories of my childhood and my mother and she always listened as if she was hearing something of great interest to her. She never told me nothing about her own childhood. So I can tell nothing of it here.

  One of them times when I had been reading to her and was about to go on out to get on with my work, Esme come and stood at the door with me. She stood a while and I waited to hear what she had on her mind, for it was clear to me she did have something on her mind and was working up to saying it. At last she said to me, Irie has not been an easy child to rear, you know, Bobby. She is not like our Miriam. Watching her teach you to read and write I have seen another side of her. Esme looked at me and smiled. You are good for her, Bobby. Daniel and I are grateful to you. She touched me on the shoulder, just a light touch of her fingers, and she said, I hope I am not embarrassing you now. I told her I was okay with it and I firmed my hat and stepped off the back step and went on down to the machinery shed and I stood in the shade and rolled a smoke. Standing there smoking my cigarette and looking out at the horses feeding in the paddock I was thinking about Irie and Esme and the surprising setup I had got myself into at the police house. I believe I was happier that morning than I had been since Dad passed on and our old way of life come to an end.

  TWO

  When the trouble started with Ben Tobin I was afraid there might be no going back from it for Daniel and his family on account of Ben’s touchiness and Daniel’s stiff way of dealing with people. It was a pity there was no room in Daniel’s dealings with the Mount Hay people for a sense of humour. He just did not see things the way we seen them. If that same trouble had come to George Wilson he would have let it settle before jumping in, and feelings would have worked themselves out so we would have soon been seeing the funny side of it. But that was not the way it was to be.

  The first we knew of it was when Rosie Gnapun come to the kitchen door at the police house while we was having our breakfast. Rosie said Ben had been beating the girl he had out there with him at that place of his I helped him put up on Coal Creek. Rosie was the girl’s auntie and I knew she hated Ben like bad water for beating her son one time. Rosie Gnapun knew how to hold a grudge and she never let go of it but lived to see it settled. She was just as bad as Ben at wanting to square accounts. Daniel did not know Ben Tobin and I did not tell him Ben was my friend. It was a dry time when Rosie come in with her report and I told Daniel he could get the jeep over Coal Creek and I guided him out there and watched him arrest Ben for assaulting Rosie’s niece. Her name was Deeds.

  Ben was not a big man but he was strong and quick as a snake. He had his own breed of pony that was just like him, stocky and reliable on their feet. Ben give me a wink and went along with the new constable as if it was not a problem for him to find himself being arrested. That young girl who was supposed to have took the beating off him was standing in the doorway. He kissed her cheek and told her he would be seeing her soon enough. I heard him say it. Daniel did not ask her nothing, which I remember as it surprised me. She did not look to me like a girl who was beaten. I thought Ben was planning something and I did not feel comfortable being along with Daniel if there was going to be trouble. Me and Ben had been mates since we was boys and if it come to it I knew I would have to be on his side. Daniel was wearing the handcuffs on his belt and that Webley revolver in its buckled-down holster that he got from George when George was handing over at the police station, but I do not think the sight of that gun was the reason for Ben being so easy about coming in with Daniel. I seen that in his crazy way Ben was enjoying being arrested. I come to this belief later that same day when I was lying on my bunk thinking about the way things had gone that morning, and worrying about how they was to go. Getting arrested was something that never happened to Ben before while George was the constable. I think Ben changed his mind about it later, but I believe he thought being arrested and going to gaol was something that was due to him, the way a reward of some kind is felt by other men to be their due. Ben had his own ideas about justice that few men shared with him. He was a hard man and I believe he thought a stint in gaol was a kind of respect that was owed him. That was the view I come to, which explained the quiet way he went along with Daniel when he could as easy have made a stand against him or got away into the scrub and Daniel would not have found him if Ben had not wanted to be found. I do not think Daniel would have understood Ben in a million years.

  Ben pleaded guilty at his hearing and was sent to Stuart Prison in Townsville. I don’t think he cared too much what he was accused of but just pleaded guilty to see the inside of Stuart, which he had heard a lot about, as we all had. Stuart would have been a holiday for Ben anyhow. It was the first time in Mount Hay we ever knew a whitefeller go to gaol for giving a black woman a hiding. But old Chiller Swales said it happened once before that he knew of. They let Ben out after a month and he come back into the country and was over at his place on Coal Creek again with Deeds like before, as if nothing had happened. My own private belief was that although Ben had gone to gaol without making a fuss he would not leave it alone now that he and the constable had something to settle between them. That is how Ben saw things. I knew him. He would want to settle up with Daniel Collins when he seen the advantage of doing it. Daniel Collins should have been watching out for himself from then on, but I believe he thought that episode was behind him. I had the feeling it was only just a beginning.

  I went out to see Ben a couple of times but he never said nothing to me about his time in Stuart or his plans for getting his revenge on Daniel and I did not ask him about any of that. I knew if Ben wished to tell me something he would tell me without me questioning him. Deeds was not there when I visited him. But I knew it was not in him to let something like that rest.

  Ben had a reputation for being tough that he had earned as a boy and a young man around Mount Hay. He did not have a lot of time for the boys of the town and he enjoyed taunting them just to show them how weak they was. Any offence he seen to himself, no matter how small it might seem to another man, was enough for Ben to be determined to have his own back and square it up. When he was out in the scrubs he was not like that. It was only something that come over him in the town. I never seen Ben do nothing by halves. Doubles was all he knew. If he hit you, you went down and you stayed down till he let you get up. I know what I am talking about. When we was not much more than boys and was mustering with our dads on the western boundary between Mount Heron Station and Long Ridge Hole, Ben stepped his horse on a dog at the lunch camp just to show off to the stockmen from them stations. The dog’s leg was broken. I got down off my horse and I grabbed Ben’s reins and I said him and me would no longer be friends. He stepped off and we had a fight. It was the only fight me and Ben ever had but it settled something. He told me afterwards he was sorry for what he done to the dog and I believed him and we made up and was better friends than we ever was before. When he was a youngster Ben had a well of cruelty his old man put in him with the beatings he give him as a child. Things could go either way with Ben, sweet and gentle or cruel. It was not easy to predict.

  I did not say nothing about my thoughts on this to Daniel or to Esme, but I did think of telling them it was maybe time for them to leave Mount Hay and return to their quiet lives on the coast. What stopped me speaking out was my fear of losing Irie’s friendship. I may even have said something to Irie, because she was always quick to see if I was brooding about something and she was not slow to speak her mind to me and ask me straight out. She would put her hand on my arm and look into my eyes with that serious look of hers and say, You going to tell me about it then, Bobby? And I always told her. On account of the trust we had between us.

  Irie did not share everything that was between me and her with her mother and father. And I suppose that was another thing that was real but was not in the open, that sharing between us that me and Irie done without speaking of it. Having me eat with them in the kitchen of the police house brought me into their family in way
s in the end that I do not think Esme give her attention to. But we can never see our future in the actions of today, except that we will know death one day as our parents knew death in their time. I could not let my mind believe in Irie’s death. When she was teaching me, Irie took my hand in her own hand and shaped my fingers to the correct way of holding the pen. Now you try, she said and she watched and waited with patience for me to get it right. I lay on my bunk at night and looked out the open door of my quarters at the stars in the sky and I thought of Irie’s hand guiding my hand. And in my thoughts I told my mother of my feelings for that girl and my mother understood my feelings, as I knew she always would.

  . . .

  Ben Tobin was the smartest bushman I ever knew, except for my dad. Ben was born and bred up by his dad in them Conway Ranges. He had mustered every inch of that wild country with his old man and mine when we was boys together. Our dads both took us out of school when we was ten years of age. Ben was two years ahead of me, which always made him seem a lot older than me and my superior, except when it come to horses, where I knew myself to be his equal. When I first arrived in the camps he was already handy and knew his way around the work. I cooked for the camp at first then mustered. I never met a bushman who did not know how to cook. We all done it when it was needed. Ben did the work of a grown man from the beginning. There was not a sweet spring of clear water in that hard-bitten stone country Ben Tobin did not know where it was by the time he was fifteen years of age. Even with his unsettling ways the stations liked having Ben around. He could get their wild cattle out of them springs when no one else could. Ben always treated me like I was his little brother. He stood by me.