Leonora covered her mouth, her mind dizzy. Another man came from the drive dragging a little Aboriginal boy by the arm. The boy screamed at the barn, screamed, screamed and fought with the policeman, who gave up on the arm and grabbed him, slung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. And then the sounds congealed—screams that wrenched the gut and hacked it to pieces—howls of women. The nightmare solidified: The police were taking the children.
Leonora sprinted forward with a tearing heart. A priest heard her steps, pivoted like a twisted black pole and smiled. “Ah, good morning; you must be Mrs. Harrington.”
“What is this?” she gasped, her voice high with horror.
A woman came up beside him. “We haven’t met, yet, Mrs. Harrington. I’m Rebecca Malloy, the Deacon’s wife.” She stuck out a hand pleasantly. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
Did they not hear the screaming? She ignored the hand, ignored the introduction. Her body shook. “What’s going on?”
“Forgive me.” The Deacon fumbled with his hat and held it in his hands. “I assumed your husband had told you.”
“Told me what?”
“That we would be coming today to remove the children,” the wife interjected sweetly.
“Removing the children?” Leonora’s gaze flitted spastically between their faces. “Why?”
The woman clicked her teeth and didn’t seem to hear the question. She peered widely at the homestead. “What a lovely home you have.”
Leonora held her ears. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re part of the Aboriginal Protection Board,” Mrs. Malloy said, and sighed. Her voice took on the stiffness of authority. “We run the children’s mission for this county.”
The policeman was back, a flailing, naked baby clutched in his arms. “Perhaps I should explain,” Mrs. Malloy began. “Being an American, you wouldn’t know about these things.” She placed her hand on Leonora’s shoulder as if she were a child. “You see, we help the children—the natives and especially the half-breeds—find permanent homes where they can be raised properly, have a chance at a decent upbringing.”
“These children already have homes.”
“In the rudest sense, yes, but most still live as savages. Our mission gives them exposure to structured society, where they are given proper education, food and clothing. Without our programs, these young children haven’t a chance. They’re quite neglected.”
Leonora stared at them. “They’re not neglected! I’ve seen them myself.”
“Mrs. Harrington, the very fact that they are Aborigines is proof that they are neglected.” Mrs. Malloy veered Leonora to the house. “Come, I’ll explain it all over tea. I must see this lovely home of yours.”
Leonora jerked her arm away. “You’re not taking these children.”
“We are.” The woman stiffened. “They’re wards of the state. It’s the law.”
Behind the Malloys, Leonora saw another child plucked into rough arms—Macaria—her angled face frozen in terror, the white eye popping in panic, the view of angels murdered.
“No!” Leonora pushed through the group. “Let her go!” She pried the child from the big hands and hugged her to her breast. Macaria wrapped her legs around her ribs and buried her head under Leonora’s hair, shivering uncontrollably.
“Get off my property!” Anger raked and left her blind. Leonora pushed the woman into the chest of the Deacon. “All of you!”
Mrs. Malloy, composed, strode with defiance. “I know this is not easy to watch, Mrs. Harrington.” She closed her eyes for a moment as if praying for patience. “But you must remember that the natives don’t think as you and I do. They are a simple people. They soon forget that they even had children. I’ve seen it hundreds of times before. They scream and yell like animals and then they forget.”
Deacon Malloy nodded solemnly. “It’s true.”
Leonora looked at them, one and then the other. “It’s inhuman!”
“On the contrary!” The Deacon recoiled. “Savages raising savages, living in squalor without decent clothing or education, is what’s inhuman. Taking the children away from their parents is the most charitable thing to do.”
“Ah, Deacon and Mrs. Malloy!” came Alex’s voice from behind. “I would have been out to meet you earlier, but my ride took longer than I expected.” He kissed Mrs. Malloy on the cheek. “You should have come in for breakfast.”
A sick, rotten taste filled Leonora’s mouth. “You knew about this?”
“Of course.” He looked at his wife as an enigma. “I told you the church was doing us a good favor.” Alex noticed the child in her arms and scowled in disgust.
The sickness grew and made her weak. Leonora stepped aside and put the child to the ground, held the frozen cheeks between her palms. “Macaria.” Leonora’s voice quivered as she tried to pull the tone straight. “It’s going to be all right. Do you understand?” Leonora tried to catch the child’s prancing gaze, held firm to the cheeks. “It’s going to be all right, Macaria.” She released the face and the child ran under a bush, hid within its scraggy branches.
The group watched Leonora with pity. Alex rolled his eyes. “You have to excuse my wife. She doesn’t know the troubles Australia has had with the natives.” The Malloys nodded. “What’s that pounding?” he asked.
“We had to lock the women in the barn. I hope you don’t mind,” the Deacon said. “Thought it safer for everyone until the ordeal was over. But we’re just about loaded. We’ll be out of your hair in a moment.”
Leonora’s mouth went dry. The window was closing. A policeman locked the back of one of the trucks, pushed a little black head away from the opening. He strode to the driver’s seat and waited, his fat red arm slung over the open window. The smell of urine and vomit wafted from the caged door of the truck. The screaming died down—tortured whimpers took its place.
“Alex, may I have a word with you?” Leonora asked desperately.
He winked at the Malloys. “Excuse me for a moment.” Alex stepped away and smiled for show, but his voice hissed, “Don’t do this, Leonora! The Malloys know everyone this side of Australia. I won’t have you causing a scene.”
She had one chance, one argument. It had to be right. Leonora took his arm. “Alex, I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”
“No?” He folded his arms across his chest. “And why is that, darling?”
She swallowed. “How many Aborigines work as stockmen here?”
“Twelve. Why?”
“How much do you pay them?”
“Not much.”
“And they’re hard workers?”
His eyes narrowed. “I suppose.”
Leonora pulled him closer and murmured, “Seems to me that right now the Aborigines are a benefit. As long as they are employed and left alone, they seem harmless enough. But if we take their children away, they’ll leave and you’ll need to hire all new stockmen, white ones at that.” He was digesting her words and she grew bold. “Beyond that, there’s no telling how the men will react when they return and find their children gone. I’ve heard stories, Alex. They may burn the barns, the house. They’ll cut the fences. They might even kill the horses.” Alex dropped his arms to his sides, his eyes steely.
The door was cracked but not open. She gripped his arm, dug her nails into his shirt. “You do this, Alex, and it’s simply too dangerous for me to stay here alone.”
He straightened his shoulders and patted her head. “The men would protect you.”
“They’re out in the paddocks all day; you know that.” She squeezed his arm tighter. “I’d have no choice but to come to the mine with you, Alex. I don’t mind, really. I can stay in the owner’s quarters and we can have dinner together every night.” She smiled and caressed his arm, her insides ill. “Might be nice actually.”
The door flew open. Alex cleared his throat. “You make some good points.” He pinched her chin. “Perhaps you have some of your uncle’s logic in you after all.”
Her skin cringed with his touch and she smiled wider. Alex passed a look over her shoulder. “The Malloys will be disappointed.”
“Just tell them we’ll take responsibility for the children. Then give them a large donation and they’ll think you the most savvy and generous man around.” Leonora linked her arm into his and rested her head on his biceps—hated him.
The Malloys listened to Alex, assented with bent heads, the air pumped out of their worthy cause. The policemen grunted as they unlocked the trucks, let the fruit of their labor escape. Children spilled out and rushed the barn, fled to the bush with tears and jerky movements. A policeman slung his gun to his back and helped the children raise the bolt on the barn. Mothers spilled into the open, blind with sun and grief, fell atop one another and crawled in the dirt for their children. New wails alighted as children clung to necks and hips.
Leonora turned away as she held tight to the sobs, swallowed them as one would a horse pill, one after the other. The horror, the cruelty, of it all nearly knocked her to the ground.
The empty, fetid trucks lumbered away. The Malloys left the station, their greedy pockets thick with cash, to save another round of children at another station, to steal another round of natives from their homes, to rip another round of lives from their mothers’ breasts.
Alex came up behind her and kissed the top of her head. And she wished him dead.
CHAPTER 48
Ghan rubbed his shoulder, stiff from lying on hard ground. Seems age comes to the bones first, he realized—thickens the bone marrow and hardens the joints like they’re aching for oil. Blood turns to gelatin; skin dries and cracks and spots; hair falls out. He slid his tongue along his gums. Teeth mostly gone except for a few tombstones lining the bottom. Eyes and ears age, too, making the world wavy and distant. Cold feels colder; heat feels hotter—between the two lie the ache and the weariness.
Ghan fixed his wooden leg, grabbed his lunch—half a loaf of bread and a can of sardines. He left the tent, hobbled with the rest of the ants toward the rising sun and the descending pit. Today was good-bye to the light and down to the dark, back to where he belonged, to the place deep in the basement that hid him from the pretty world upstairs.
With each step, the ground vibrated and sent shock waves up his good leg and rattled his wooden one. Iron cars bumped and shoved along the line; pistons and steel hammers pounded from the smelter. The air choked with oil and ore—the stink of the inner earth fighting against clean oxygen. Ghan passed enormous woodpiles of eucalyptus: dead trees, torn and ravaged, waiting for their turn in the pit or pyre. He looked back at his footprints. The camp was far away now. A great fear crept up his spine, one vertebra at a time.
“Name?”
Ghan was at the dark entrance of the shaft. The checker held pen to clipboard. “Name!” he shouted again.
Ghan wanted to go back. “Ghan.”
“Lower in!”
He wanted to turn away from the noise, the smell, the gaping black hole—run to the light, to his tiny canvas tent. But his legs moved forward, stepped into the cold iron skip. Another miner shared the shuttle. The man’s skin more green than white, swarthy, probably Romanian. And the green man watched Ghan with black eyes, stared through him, his brows set so low as to be wicked. Ghan turned his head, but the miner’s eyes were still on him, shifted to the crippled leg and turned blacker. Ghan knew the look. No miner wanted to be reminded of the dangers that lurked underground.
“Send ’er down!”
The skip lurched in less than an instant, shoved Ghan’s stomach to his throat and stretched his lips away from his clenched teeth. They plunged into solid black; the miner inches away from him disappeared with a switch. The skip rattled and bounced and cursed and sped. A thrust of cold, damp air drove over his flesh, followed by the stinking humidity of trapped, heated bodies and lamps. In a matter of seconds, which could have been hours, the skip stopped and they were more than a mile underground.
Miners flowed out of the carts. Ghan settled his insides and pulled himself out last. It would look bad to dawdle. It would be worse to vomit and he swallowed the bile back, gagged. The men who had turned to ants now turned to moths as they walked in a straight line toward the carbide lamps down the shaft. The timber-latticed ceilings, like upside-down railroad tracks, were low and the men stooped as they walked. The sound of picking and digging hid somewhere beyond the halo of light.
The walls, floors and ceilings were thick with oil—moving oil. Ghan’s jaws began to shake. He had forgotten about the cockroaches. Hard wings tap-danced across each other as the bugs crawled over every inch of space; a wet crunching emanated under the men’s boots. The rats, fat as cats from the roaches, scurried between the men’s feet. Only their pale tails showed in the light like giant, flicking earthworms.
A cockroach fell from the ceiling onto Ghan’s shoulder, then scurried across his face before he could smack it away. The vomit burned his throat again. The mine was Hell as sure as any existed. His limbs quivered. He didn’t know how he had ever done this work before—felt like it had been another life, another man living it.
The men crawled through a hole and emerged in the work zone, the picking now deafening between enclosed walls. The roaches and rats were gone. The lights blinded after the former darkness and couldn’t be looked at directly. The foreman directed the miners to their stations and their tools. Then he saw Ghan. “Whoa! Whot the ’ell yeh doin’ down here, mate?” The foreman was an old man, spoke with concern, not anger. “Think yer in the wrong place.”
Ghan was in the wrong place. He was in Hell. “I can work,” Ghan answered.
“Guess they don’t care who they send down here anymore.” The voice held a long sadness, an apathy to it. He scratched his head with black sooty fingers. “Take the stoop over there. Yeh can sit while yeh pick.”
“Don’t need to sit,” said Ghan gruffly.
The foreman pointed hard at the area. “Yeh’ll sit if I tell yeh to sit!” But then his voice softened. “Ain’t pity. Sometimes a fella earns a seat. By the looks of it, yeh’ve put in yer time in the pit, paid yer dues.” He handed a pick to another miner just arrived from the skip. “Just take the seat, yeh stubborn bastard.”
CHAPTER 49
The house was quiet with trapped, stale heat. Flies were bold and thirsty for sweat; windows needed to stay closed. Leonora folded clothes in the bedroom, spread out the wrinkles, placed the clothing in neat stacks within the bureau. Suddenly, the eaves rattled. The pictures vibrated, the frames smacking lightly against the wall. The floorboards shook under her heels and the iron bed hopped. She gripped the edge of the mattress, her insides throbbing with the noise that seemed loud enough to tumble the house. But then she knew. She ran to the window. A cloud of dirt rose and spread across the distance as thousands of hooves pounded toward the homestead. Leonora held her face, smiled until her eyes watered. They were back.
She left the clothes and hurried down the steps. Clare and Meredith blocked a window each with their figures as they glued their faces to the glass. Meredith turned, her face grim. “Someone’s been hurt.”
Leonora shimmied between the women and followed their pointed fingers. Two figures limped toward the house. “Boil some water!” Leonora ordered as she ran to the door. “Get clean towels and the medicine case.”
Outside, Tom had one arm slung around James’s shoulder while his other hand clutched his side, half his shirt soaked in dirt and blood. James held him upright, staggered under the tipping weight. Leonora ran to them, flung Tom’s other arm around her neck as they made their way to the verandah, the man’s face twisting in pain with each step.
“What happened?” she panted.
“Gored. About a mile out,” James said. “Horn stuck him deep. Not sure how far.”
They dragged Tom into the house, his teeth gritted against the agony.
“Put him on the couch,” Leonora directed.
“Don’t put me here.” Tom struggled a
s James set him down. “I’m bleeding.”
“I don’t give a rat’s tail about the couch, Tom. Lie down.” Leonora lifted his heavy dust-covered boots onto the spotless sage velvet. Blood flowed freely from his side and dripped down the couch onto the rug.
Carefully, she unbuttoned Tom’s shirt, the cotton already hardening with dried blood.
Clare brought the medicine case, a pile of bandages and a hot basin of water before fleeing. Leonora pulled the fabric from the wound. A fresh bubble of blood erupted from the black hole.
Tom felt the gush, looked down, tried to scoot away from it. “Aw, Gawd!”
“It’s going to be all right, Tom. It looks worse than it is,” she lied. “Lie back. It will slow the bleeding.” She met James’s worried gaze. “You need to go to Gwalia for a doctor. Take the car. The keys are on the seat.” Then, as an afterthought, “Should probably have someone wire Alex and let him know.”
James nodded, eyed her gratefully for a moment, then turned to Tom. “Stay put and listen to what she says.”
Clare brought a pile of towels, saw the wound and began to cry, “Aw Lord! Aw—”
Leonora shot her a look that made her suck in her lips. “Bring me a bottle of whiskey.”
“Sure you should be drinkin’ at a time like this?” Tom’s grin broke to a tortured grimace.
Leonora turned to the bubbling wound and squared a section of gauze, placed it against the opening. Tom shot up with the pressure. “Please, Tom. You need to stay down. We’ve got to get the bleeding to slow.”
Within seconds, the gauze was soaked and she replaced it with another, twisting Tom into a rail of pain. She brought the whiskey to his lips. “Drink as much as you can.”
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