by Rohan Wilson
What sort of man? he said with a snort.
That’s right. If we are to do him a mischief, I want to know.
Well, you aren’t as canny as I thought if you need to ask that, he said and he turned and continued on. And it’s him that did us the mischief, he said.
I imagine he robbed some squatter. Or bushranged out west.
Flynn kept walking. It’s not a fit subject for a girl.
She hurried after him. I’m not a girl.
Yes, you are.
No, I’m a woman.
She said it very plainly. He looked up at the sky, gripping his staff, his soul wringing inside him. Ellen, would you listen to her, he said.
Did he steal a horse?
Bejaysus, how would I know?
What do you know then?
All I can tell you, he said, is what I was told by that spiteful lot of men that was generally at Port Arthur.
Behind the cloth her black eyes narrowed. I don’t want lies, she said.
That rogue is flush with lies and fock all else.
Flynn walked a while without saying more. Gazing over the hills, over the pallid fields of wheat. When he turned to her his face had soured. There was a girl, is what I was told, he said. I don’t know, a servant girl, ex-government. Like as not a girl without much in the way of sense. Point being, Toosey had her with child and this was all a long time ago, to be sure, but it was told to me as such.
How long?
Twenty years at least.
It sounds like what Jilly Connell done.
Aye, and it might have been. Only Jilly Connell done what was right by his girl. He married her. Toosey has no notion of rightness at all.
So what? He was gaoled for that?
That’s not the whole of it, no. When the little bastard was born this girl had a fit of the nerves. There was some conspiracy between the pair of them. God knows what. But the wee’un was killed.
How?
Put a cord about its throat. Tied it off. They done the deed and buried it by the river, which wasn’t clever. It was turned up by and by. Wrapped in a piece of towel and some brown winsey, I was told. Wearing a little apron.
Caislin walked with her hands in her pockets and her eyes down. She kicked a stone. Might it not have been bad luck? she said.
Twas bad luck. They should’ve hung him.
I mean, might the girl have blamed Toosey for her own neglect? Or might the wee’un have just died?
Flynn snorted. More fiddler than dancing man, is our Toosey.
Caislin took another swing at the stone. Why should anyone want to kill an infant? Their own infant?
You can ask the man hisself when we find him.
A few yards further up Flynn found what he was after. Within a field of thistles stood a dark and smokeless shack dropping bits of its palings and sprouting weeds along its roof thatch. The door hung slightly ajar and inside all was still. Flynn lifted his staff and pointed to it. Caislin looked at the shack and looked away without a word. Thus it was agreed upon.
They stepped over the low drywall and picked through the scotch thistle for the front door, Caislin watching the road over her shoulder. The door was a few handcut planks suspended off a hinge of rope and Flynn pushed it back with his stick. Sun shafts pierced the dark where the roof stood open to the sky. He looked around the room. There were blankets and other bedding strewn over the stone floor and on one wall a table stacked with empty tins and candle stubs in jars. They moved into the room and pulled the door closed.
It was a long and peaceful hour they wasted removing their boots and socks to let their feet dry and eating the last crust of Longford bread. Caislin was seated against the wall on a pile of mouldy blankets and nodding her head now and then in sleep. Flynn watched her from the corner of his eye as he wrapped his blisters in shreds of sheeting. He whistled.
Oi, he said, don’t you be drifting off now.
Let me bloody sleep.
We can’t stop here. And watch your mouth.
Let me sleep a minute. Please.
Like hell.
He threw a wadded length of sheet at her.
Please, she said. She was clasping her knees and bracing her head upon them. The sun through the ceiling cast light over her frail white feet but left the rest of her in darkness. Flynn said no more on the matter. In time there rose a rhythmic breathing from the shadows where she slept, long and even and calm.
So when later he heard talking, at first he thought the girl was muttering in her dreams. He peered up from his work of mending the satchel straps with knotted rag. The sound seemed to waft through the breach in the roof and he bent his ear to it. Voices, coarse and loud. He stood to look out of the window hole and he saw, lifting their boots over the drywall and approaching, a band of young men, a good few of them. He had time to shake Caislin awake and seize up his staff before the door bundled open.
The first of the gangers stepped inside the hut. He had a strangely stiff gait and his shadow wormed like a dying man in the oblong of light cast on the floor. When he turned and saw Fitheal Flynn the ganger had time to cease smiling and knit his brows together before Flynn shoved him to the ground by his shirt collars. A general cry went up from the group outside the hut. The other gangers had mounted the verandah and were crowding about the door but when they saw Caislin, a fable horror, hooded, holding coolly by her side the bulldog gun she’d drawn from Flynn’s belt, they stopped dead and stared.
Get along now, she said.
But they could only stare.
She lifted the pistol and cocked it. Get along I said.
The sound of the turning cylinder sent them breaking for the low drywall, vaulting it for their lives. Caislin stepped outside, the gun still up. She watched them flee down the road holding that pistol on them all the while.
You’re in me snug, said the young fellow laid out on the floor. He was struggling to his feet.
Flynn came to this ganger and with his staff cracked him a settling blow across his head. The youth tried to cover himself and Flynn jammed one boot flat between the fellow’s shoulders and pressed him out. He propped on his knee as he studied the sorry sight pinned below.
A wonderful piece of luck, he said to the lad.
This is my place.
What is your name there, my son?
You can kiss my arse breeches down, you can.
Flynn struck him again. Your name?
The fellow clamped his arms around his shaven head. Jane Eleanor Hall, he said cringing.
Flynn’s feathery eyebrows lifted. Playing games will get you hit, he said.
I aint playin. I’m a girl.
Well, Flynn said, you’re the ugliest girl I ever saw.
Go and be buggered.
Jaysus, and where’s your hair?
Go to hell.
Best you smarten up, Miss Jane Eleanor Hall. For you have yourself in a nice little quandary.
It’s comin, she said. Tell Rabbit I will have it soon.
She was pressed down hard on the floorstones and even bending her neck about she could not see Flynn. I don’t have it yet, she said trying to twist out from under his boot. The devil knows how, but I will have it. I swear I will.
From her place on the floor she could, however, see Caislin. She stopped her struggle and stared. What’s wrong with him? Is he sick?
In the column of sun the cotton cowl was brilliantly white, the folds below the nose twitching with each breath, the fathomless pits of the eyes. The ganger rubbed her bruised head. You aint Rabbit’s boys, she said.
No, lass. We are not.
Hall bent her neck around. The lack of hair made her eyes look big. A pair of showy bastards is what you—
Flynn drove down the butt of his staff. She cried out.
Listen to me, lass, lest you come to end your days on this here floor. Shut your mouth and I’ll remove my boot off you. Can you do that?
Hall nodded slightly under his stick.
All right?
Flynn moved back and stood before the door. He gripped his staff and watched as the girl drew first to her knees, rocking back into a crouch with one leg cocked out stiffly, the tears in the grime of her face leaving clean streaks. Her eyes jumped back and forth between them. At length Flynn addressed her.
Your place, is it?
The ganger nodded.
Then I apologise. I believed it empty.
Silence. The ganger seemed to be waiting for her fate to unfold. When nothing happened, when they merely stared at her, she climbed to her feet in a series of practised hops, cocking her lame leg out to the side and backing away to the wall. She seemed wholly keen to disappear into the darkest corners of the hut.
Flynn removed his droopy hat and fanned himself with it. She’s hotter than Satan’s arse, he said.
Why’s he lookin at me like that? Hall said. She was watching Caislin, watching her hold the bulldog gun.
And a nice wee snug it is too.
Is he sick? Why’s he starin at me?
Save for the great bloody hole in the roof.
Tell him to take that bag off, Hall said.
Flynn snorted. He won’t make hisself known to the likes of you.
The ganger pressed back against the wall, blooms of mould blistering the spoiled paint.
But I will tell you his name, said Flynn, for tis a name well known. A name even you will know.
Never seen him before, she said. How could I know his name? But you do.
Jane Hall backed away further.
This here man is Jack Ketch, he said.
A look of concern crossed her face. It aint, she said. Ketch is a story.
Who says stories aren’t real?
You’re shammin me.
Tis Ketch all right, said Flynn.
Hall edged another pace towards the corner.
I should think a fine young city arab such as you, Flynn said, would come to hear of the man Ketch.
They call all the hangmen Ketch, she said.
They do. Aye, they do.
Tell him to take off that hood.
There was a long pause as Flynn pulled his stick close and settled his weight upon it. He looked her head to toe. Could you find a man in town, Miss Jane Eleanor Hall? A man who didn’t want to be found, say. A man called Thomas Toosey but who uses different names. Last week it was Atkinson. Jaysus only knows what it is this week. Could you do that? Would you know how?
I never heard of no Toosey before, said the ganger. So hows about you leave me be.
Here Flynn paused to hang his hat off the weighted bulb of his staff. I will confess that Toosey has his reasons to avoid me, he said. We have an account to settle with him, you understand.
Hall looked from one to the other.
Having known Toosey many a year, having spent a portion of my life in confinement with him, you can trust me when I say that he is fairly due to the gallows.
Jane Hall seemed not to hear. Her eyes cut about the room.
Are you listening, Miss Hall?
Yes sir, she said.
God forbid you come to harm merely cause you didn’t listen.
Please sir. I’m listenin.
You should understand I provide this counsel for your benefit.
I’m listenin. I am.
Shall I continue?
Yes sir.
Flynn reached up and smoothed his sparse hair across the width of his forehead. I run cows on a tenancy in Quamby, said Flynn. Run them for beef. Was a good year for beef, did you know that?
No.
Oh, and it was. We made us a profit, my three daughters and I. Sold eighty head up Deloraine way and took our banknotes home for safe keeping. Never trust a bank, Miss Hall. What are they, after all? Feeding off honest men like march flies.
Yes, sir.
Flynn wrung the neck of his staff, the leather of his hands creaking. But somehow this man Thomas Toosey got word of it, he said. And in he come. He waited till I was away, watched the house I reckon. When he come my daughter was alone.
Talk to the traps, said Hall, if he’s stolen from you.
Lass, tis Ketch and I shall settle him.
For stealin a few quids? she said.
Money is not the matter.
Kill a fellow for stealin, she said. Why in hell would you do that?
If it was the stealin, said Flynn, we should have our money and let him be, by God. But the blood that beats in him is old blood, tried in war. It was the blacks he fought as a boy. Indentured to a frontiersman in the east. Now it’s whichever poor soul he happens upon. He is a powerful fiend, is Toosey, and murder follows him about. Just two days past we saw a man who’d fought Toosey fist and claw. Oh, and he fought. And for it he was killed.
Police round here are nasty bastards, Hall said. He won’t get far. They’ll hunt him out for you.
You aren’t one of these who bow down in fear of the law, are you, Miss Hall? A moderate woman? Crawling in fear of words on paper?
She looked at him. Eh?
The lessons of Paris are learned, the lessons of Ballingarry. Are they not?
She propped hard in the corner of the hut, staring back at him. You’re a mad pair of bastards, she said.
The madness is to meekly submit, he said. Meekly lie down and accept servitude. Withdraw your consent, Miss Hall, and they cannot control you. That is the lesson of Ballingarry. Civilisation is a lie. The grand lie. Told by masters to servants. He smiled, exposing his brace of crook teeth. I see a fortuity in meeting you, he said. A girl who knows the town, knows how to hide herself, knows how to ask around.
Jane Hall curled back her lip. You want a cripple to go hunt a killer? she said.
Not hunt. Lay eyes on him, that is all.
Lay eyes on him, he says. I think you have me mistook for another. I aint cut out for this.
You’re cut fine for my purposes.
And what if I find him? Hall said. What then? I’m bloody lame.
Mostly in these cases, he said, the horse thinks one thing and the rider another. I expect you shan’t even look for him. You’ll hole up snug somewhere and wait for us to pass through. Would you do something like that, lass?
Jane Hall cocked her head to one side. She kept quiet.
Of course you would, Flynn said, such is your nature. So let me propose an offer, to be sure of your loyalty. I’d be willing to pay for word of Toosey. Let’s call it a pound for a sighting. Two for his whereabouts.
She looked at him and her eyes glistened.
Hearing me, are you? he said.
She licked her upper lip. Ten, she said.
Flynn lifted a single woollen eyebrow.
Ten pound.
His hands on his stick creaked and twisted.
I find him. I show you where he is. You give me ten.
Flynn shook his head. No.
It’s my neck I’m riskin, aint it?
Flynn gave a slow shake of the head. Take a look at Ketch there, he said.
Eh?
Are you lookin?
She nodded.
Get yourself a good long eyeful, don’t be shy about it.
Yes, sir.
A man remade in the image of a beast, Flynn said. A man given over to blood as the mouth of the lion is given over to blood. Is he not?
Hall blinked rapidly. She straightened up.
Make war with him at your peril, Flynn said.
To show their sincerity Caislin tucked the gun into the loose band of her trousers. She pushed back her sleeves and there were foul blistered scars along her forearms, bound about in part by stained bandaging. Hall looked into the black pits centremost of the hood and was rendered silent by what she saw.
So you’ll have your ten, lass, he said. But you would not be wanting to upset Mr Ketch here.
No, sir. Thank you, sir.
You would not want to disappear, say.
No. I wouldn’t do that.
I should think not.
&n
bsp; If I can show you where the mongrel is, she said. If I can take you to the place. That is worth ten.
Aye, you’ll have ten.
Flynn dipped into his pocket and produced a knotted leather purse and shook some coins into his palm. I am entirely sincere about this, he said.
He put out his hand for the young ganger and it hung there, solitary in its intent, until Hall shambled forward out of the dark corner, plucked the coins from it, and pocketed them.
Entirely sincere, he said again.
What’s he look like? she said. Your man Toosey or Atkinson? You will mark him by his hair which he keeps long and braided like the Indians of America. He’s near sixty and perfectly grey, wearing always a billycock.
Give us a day or two, she said. I’ll need a day or two.
You have everything to gain, Miss Hall.
He stepped clear of the door and he held out his arm as if to guide the young ganger through it. She hobbled slowly forward. On the threshold she stopped and looked them over, one then the other. He spat in his hand and put it out to her. They shook.
How will I find you? she said.
No one forgets a hangman, lass, do they now?
No, she said.
So ask around, he said. We won’t be far away.
She looked at them both and shook her head. She hopped into the afternoon heat, her halt leg scything through the thistle and tussock grass, and mounted the drywall into the road. It was quiet thereabouts and she moved alone over the rutted mud and through the fringe of land with only the rhythmic scrape of her leg disturbing the silence. When she was out of sight down the way Flynn said, We need to be leaving.
Why?
If she finds Toosey, she might come the queer with him. Perhaps propose to sell him our whereabouts and therefore enlarge her own profit in this game.
Caislin dropped her head. That was our last few shillins, she said.
Spent well too, if it turns up Toosey.
Unless she comes the queer with him.
Then it’s a mess of a business, right enough. But it’s a mess anyway, so there you have it.
And here’s us with nothin to eat. Not a bite.
Flynn held up his hand and tapped on the gold band he wore. It was so scuffed and dull that it looked almost part of him. Time has come to sell this, he said.
No, don’t do that.
Listen to me now. I’ll put the ring into pawn. That is all.