‘Not our problem.’
‘It is now.’
The two brothers faced each other. Jack’s hands were clenched. Work on the hut had not expended all the adrenalin that the confrontation with Jed Smales had built up in his body. If Cash wanted a fight, he was ready.
Cash read the message in Jack’s eyes. He shook his head as he surrendered. ‘As if we didn’t have enough to worry about …’
Jack held the pole upright while Cash shovelled the soil into the hole and tamped it down.
‘It’ll cause trouble,’ Cash said as they worked. ‘You realise that?’
‘I don’t see why.’ Seeing very well.
Soon the second upright was in position. The next piece of timber would be used as a brace to stiffen them. They fetched it, carrying it between them.
‘You think Thornton will let you walk off with one of his girls and do nothing about it?’ Cash asked.
‘I didn’t go looking for her,’ Jack said. ‘You saw the state she’s in. We let that bully boy of Thornton’s take her back, she’ll be dead in a month.’
‘And I still say it’s none of our business.’
‘Suffer the little children,’ Jack quoted angrily.
Cash scoffed. ‘Not so little, my handsome. That one’s been around, believe me.’
‘I’ll not let rubbish like Thornton treat a girl in that fashion and get away with it,’ Jack said angrily. ‘We’re supposed to be civilised people. That makes it our business.’
‘Please yourself,’ Cash said. ‘But we’ve not heard the last of it. I’ll guarantee you that.’
*
The shadows were lengthening when Jack saw the solitary figure walking steadily along the footpath from the direction of the settlement.
‘Trouble,’ he said.
He went to meet him. Thornton was wearing dark clothes. With his gaunt face and pale, staring eyes, he looked like a ghost. Only at a distance, though: close to, he was far too hard to be that.
They met on the path. The river chuckled, tugging at the reeds as it flowed past, and Jack remembered their previous encounter when Thornton had ended up in the water.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Thornton.’
The ex-convict was not interested in pleasantries. ‘Yon girl is mine.’
‘No, sir. She is not.’
The basilisk eyes did not flicker. ‘She’s been allocated to me as indentured labour. Tha’s no right to remove her from my care. No right at all.’
‘Care?’ Jack spat angrily. ‘She’s half dead because of your care.’
‘I never laid a finger on her.’
‘Your man did.’
‘The girl’s been living with him months, now. Man and wife, like. Man’s got a right to chastise his own wife, he finds her chatting up some young rakehell with a pistol in his belt. Tha’ll find none to argue with that. And then taking her away by force …’ He shook his head. ‘Could have a deal of trouble on thy hands, tha don’t watch out.’ He straightened his coat. ‘Any road, I’ve not come here to exchange threats. Smales says tha offered to buy the girl. That right?’
‘How much do you want for her?’
Thornton scratched an ear thoughtfully with a long finger. ‘A thousand guineas.’
Jack stared. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Nay, Mr Tremain, it’s thee bein’ ridiculous. Fact is, she baint for sale. Not to thee, any road. I’ve not forgotten what tha did, last time we met. Like I were muck beneath thy feet. Mr Tremain, I’ll just be collecting her and I’ll be on my way.’
‘You can be on your way without her.’
The dark eyes did not flicker. ‘I want her, lad.’
Jack shook his head. ‘No.’
For a moment, a dark light glowed at the back of Thornton’s eyes. ‘Allus seem to be havin’ trouble, thee ’n’ me,’ Thornton said. ‘Take care tha doesn’t live to regret it.’
The blood flushed hot into Jack’s head. He seized Thornton by his coat front. ‘Are you threatening me?’
Thornton stepped back quickly. Jack opened his fingers and let him go. Thornton dusted himself down, face mottled, rage leaking like lava. ‘Tha seems to think yon girl be free to come and go as she likes. She’s not. She’s my property. Thee’ll find she understands that.’
‘The day she wants to leave, she can.’
‘When summat’s mine, I don’t wait for it to come back by itself. I takes action. I asked thee fair and square and tha turned me down. So be it. Tha can expect trouble, Mr Tremain.’
Thornton turned away. Jack watched the dark-clothed figure walk back down the path towards Parramatta, then sighed and went back up the hill.
*
‘He’ll not try anything,’ Cash said.
‘He may.’
‘And risk losing his pardon? Never.’
‘Not personally, maybe. He may send others.’
‘Who?’
‘Dan Hawkins, for one. If Hawkins thinks of the girl as his wife, he may try and get her back.’ Jack looked apologetically at his brother. ‘You were right. I should have kept out of it.’
Cash, who had been angry at the beginning, was now philosophical. ‘We could alert the garrison,’ he suggested. ‘That would stop them, sure enough.’
‘That’s probably what Thornton expects,’ Jack said. ‘It won’t serve. I do that, he’ll know I’m scared of him. He’ll lie low and try again later. The only way to handle this is to settle it now. Show him I’m not scared. That way, he’ll maybe leave us alone.’
‘We were supposed to be going to that reception at Hagwood’s place,’ Cash said.
‘You can still go.’
‘And leave you here by yourself?’ Cash shook his head. ‘I’ll not do that.’
‘That girl of yours won’t be pleased.’
That was the least of Cash’s problems. He wasn’t Jane’s property nor ever likely to be. ‘She’ll have to put up with it, won’t she?’
They did what they could to get ready. It wasn’t much. Jack had the pistol. Cash had a gun, too: a flint-lock breech loader that Gough had obtained, years before, on one of his trips to France.
Cash went into the hut to fetch it. It was standing in a corner of the shack close to the bed where Cuddy was lying. His anger returned at the sight of her. Thanks to her, they might be fighting for their lives – and hers – before the night was out. And all she did was lie there.
Her good eye watched him, round and scared in her bruised face, as he picked up the gun.
‘What you want that for?’
‘Precautions,’ he said. He could see she didn’t understand the word. ‘Trying to save your neck.’ He spoke brutally, gaining satisfaction from the look of fear that crossed her face.
‘They’re coming, aren’t they? They’ll never let me get away.’
‘Apparently your friend Thornton said the same.’
He broke the barrel and checked the flint and hammer.
‘Thornton?’ Panic quivered in the girl’s voice. ‘’as ’e bin ’ere?’
There was powder and shot in leather bags on the shelf. He unlaced them, pouring powder cautiously into the flash pan.
‘I said …’
‘I heard you.’
He loaded the charge and snapped the barrel shut.
‘What you got the gun for?’ Thin fingers clenched, knuckles showing white through the sallow skin.
‘In case he decides to come back.’
The girl gave a low wail of terror.
‘For heaven’s sake keep quiet,’ Cash said. ‘No one’s going to hurt you.’
‘That’s what you say, mister. I knows better.’
‘Wailing about it won’t help.’
‘He comes up ’ere with thirty or forty men, what you goin’ to do abaht it?’
It was a good question but Cash would not permit himself to think about it. ‘With a company of soldiers not a mile away?’ he said angrily. ‘You’re talking nonsense.’
He went to find Jack, t
he gun over his shoulder, hoping if any of Thornton’s men were watching the cottage they would see it and get the message.
Jack was just finishing at the convict shed. The framework was complete, the roof spars fastened down. Tomorrow he would get on with the roof covering and, finally, the walls and door. If there was a tomorrow.
He looked at Cash. ‘Two guns. Not much.’
‘And the pair of us,’ Cash reminded him. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘Two or three of them, I’d agree with you. Twenty or thirty will take us apart, quick as winking.’
Cuddy’s point.
‘Dad’s a captain in the New South Wales Corps. Anything happens to us, there’ll be hell to pay. They know that.’
‘They think I kidnapped the girl. Get a few grogs down them, they won’t remember anything else.’
Cash looked down the path to where the roofs of the settlement showed through the trees. Everything was still. He had expected nothing else. Thornton would make no move by daylight. Trouble, if it came, would be a matter for the dark.
On the far bank, Hagwood’s new mansion, white and shining amid the green of the trees that surrounded it, stood waiting for its guests. Later they would see the lights, possibly even hear the music and the sound of voices across the river.
Night would not be long in coming. Already, the sun had disappeared behind the distant mountains. The light was beginning to fade. The sky had changed from blue to white, a purple sheen along the horizon. The countryside darkened as they watched. Like a lamp above the distant hills, a solitary planet gleamed.
‘Better get back to the hut,’ Cash said. ‘Case they try to creep up on us.’
Inside the windowless shack, it was almost dark already. In the shadows, Cash could make out shapes: an old chest Jack had scrounged from somewhere, a few pots and pans on a shelf, a basin and pitcher of water. Outside, beneath a lean-to, the remains of a small fire creaked rosily, subsiding amid a bed of ash.
‘Can’ see nuffin,’ Cuddy whined, terror like shards of glass in her voice. ‘Why don’ you light the lamp?’
‘So they can’t see us either,’ Cash told her.
She wailed again, terrified, useless. No help there, Cash thought, exasperation deepening.
With something like hate in his voice he said, ‘You don’t hold your tongue, I’ll gag you.’
He meant it and she knew it. Her crying subsided. Apart from an occasional sob of fear, like a hiccup, she was silent. He could live with that.
He stood in the open doorway, the gun still over his shoulder. The lights from Parramatta were pricking out of the gathering darkness. He turned his head and looked across the river. Candlelight gleamed through the large windows of Hagwood’s house. The visitors from Sydney would be arriving shortly. Would Thornton really try something tonight, with the whole colony here?
Cash thought that he would have no choice. Thornton would keep out of the way himself, of course, but he had to consider his standing with his men. They would all know the girl had gone. If Thornton did nothing, they would take it as a sign of weakness. He could not allow that.
No, Cash thought, he will send them. He has to.
He could just make out the grey outline of Jack’s face in the darkness. ‘Any food?’
‘Have we time to eat?’
‘They won’t come till late. They’ll think no one will hear them if they wait till the ball’s under way. It won’t help if we’re half-starved by the time they get here.’
‘There’s some cooked chicken. Some vegetables. One or two eggs.’
‘That’ll do fine.’ Cash turned to Cuddy. ‘There’s a bit of a fire outside. Put some twigs on it. Boil up some water. We’ll have the eggs hard.’
She did not move.
‘I’m talking to you,’ he said, in no mood to put up with her nonsense.
‘Don’ want nuffin to eat.’ Sullenly.
‘I don’t care what you want. I want eggs and I want you to cook them.’
‘Dunno nuffin ’baht cookin’ …’
‘Now’s the time to learn then.’
He took her wrist and pulled her to her feet. Feebly, she tried to pull away, whimpering about how he was hurting her, how he was as bad as the others, how he …
He cuffed her on the back of the head. ‘Keep your damn mouth shut,’ he said.
She subsided into a snivelling silence.
‘Jack,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘you got a saucepan?’
A sound of groping; Jack passed one to him.
‘Keep an eye on the path a minute,’ Cash told him. He turned to Cuddy and put the saucepan into her hand. She did not want to take it; he closed her fingers over the handle and held them tight.
‘Put some water in it,’ he told her.
‘Don’ see no water.’ Sulkily.
Somehow, he held his temper. He found the water container; he found the eggs; he propelled her reluctantly outside and found the sticks for the fire. He let her hand go.
‘Sticks on the fire,’ he said.
One by one, she put the sticks on the fire. There was a faint crackle. A tongue of flame licked up.
‘Water in the pan,’ he said.
Slowly, she did it.
‘Pan on the fire,’ he said.
Hating him but frightened, too, she complied.
‘Eggs in the water.’
She went to sling them in.
‘Careful!’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t break them.’
She obeyed, hair over her eyes, chin belligerent. ‘Anything else?’ Defiantly.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Watch them.’
It was better for her to do something, even boiling eggs, than sit in a heap and be terrified of every moment. Hating him was better than fear.
He turned to Jack. ‘See anything?’
‘No.’
‘Any way they can come at us from the back?’
‘Not really. I don’t see them coming at all until they’re liquored up. Then they’ll come direct. They won’t try anything clever.’
Cash thought he was right.
Miracle of miracles, the water boiled without tipping over and putting the fire out. The eggs cooked. They ate them hot, breaking the shells in their fingers. Afterwards they had the cold chicken and the mess of vegetables. Cuddy had said she was not hungry but she ate her share.
They damped the fire down so that no light showed. Cash wiped his fingers on a piece of cloth. ‘Now. Let them come and get it over with.’
It was full dark. Across the river, light from the big house shimmered on the silent water but the boats from Sydney had yet to arrive. Cash was sure Thornton’s men would do nothing until the guests were safe inside the big house.
They came an hour later – a flotilla of small craft, the governor’s pinnace leading the way with its standard waving bravely at the prow. Cash knew that Gough would be aboard, with Henry Bliss and the other senior officers of the Corps. He wondered which boat Jane and her family would be travelling in and what she would say when he failed to appear tonight. He shrugged and put the thought from him. He could do nothing about that.
A group of figures stood waiting as the arrivals came ashore: Jonathan Hagwood had arranged to have the boats met at the landing. The light of flares flickering on the multicoloured dresses of the women and the uniforms, knee breeches and wigs of the men.
Cash watched as they processed slowly across the bridge and along the path to the house. They disappeared indoors and, later, the faint sounds of music and laughter came to them.
‘I’m going out a minute,’ Cash said to Jack. ‘Keep an eye open.’
Cuddy’s panic resurfaced immediately. ‘Where you goin’?’
‘Looking for mushrooms,’ he said. ‘For breakfast.’
Cash walked outside. It was lighter than inside the hut. Overhead, the stars burned in patterns still unfamiliar to Cash. The ebony surface of the river was shot with gleams and sparks of light as the current swirled silently along. The lights of
the settlement glowed faintly through the trees.
There was no wind. He listened and thought he caught the distant sound of shouting. A water bird called from the river. A bird of a different kind flew up on silent wings from the branch of a tree, startling him.
He paced slowly across the breast of the hill, nerves prickling, senses alert to the night, until he found what he was looking for – a fold of ground, close to the edge of their land, where a man could lie unobserved, keeping the path and everything that passed along it under observation.
He walked quickly back to the hut. Jack did not challenge him.
‘How did you know it was me?’
‘I was watching you all the way.’
‘You could see me?’
‘In that white shirt of yours? Clear as day.’
It was a good thought. ‘Got anything darker?’
Jack looked at him. ‘What do you want it for?’
Cash explained his idea and Jack dug out a dark brown shirt that Cash put on in place of the white one.
Jack looked at Cuddy. ‘How you feeling?’ His voice was soft after Cash’s harsh tones.
She was still sulky. ‘I’d feel a whole lot better if you got the soldiers. Makes no bleedin’ sense, us bein’ stuck up ’ere like a cow in a tree. What do we do when they come?’
Cash answered. ‘We settle it, one way or the other.’
‘One way or the other,’ she repeated. ‘They kill us and it’ll be settled, I s’pose.’
She was better for having done that little job. Cash looked about for something else to occupy her.
‘They may not come at all,’ he said. ‘If they do, Jack and I’ll stop them. But if any of them slip past, they may try and burn the hut down. I want you to get all the containers you can find and go down to the river, fill them with water and bring them back. Are you capable of doing that?’
She stared at the night through the oblong of the open doorway. ‘Ain’t nobody out there, is there?’
Jack said, ‘Anyone comes, we’ll warn you in plenty of time for you to get back to the hut before they can reach you. They’ll have to get past us, for a start, and they won’t find that easy.’
‘All right,’ she said and did it.
Amazing, Cash thought. All that fuss about boiling a pan of water and now, something harder and far more dangerous, and she obeys without question. Maybe there’s hope for her yet.
Claim the Kingdom Page 17