One

by Patrick Holland

  The drink had caught him. He stared at his glass and then at the bottle. He did not remember how many he had poured.

  Perhaps the Kenniffs were out here somewhere, but disbanded. Impossible to track. And in time they would trickle back into the ranges, along which route their sympathisers would hide them even if a patrol did catch them up.

  Those who did not sympathise were afraid. And those who were neither fearful nor sympathetic would prefer to handle Irish outlaws and militant blacks on their own, with shotguns and stirrup irons, than have anything to do with police. What use trying to bring law to these plains of desolation?

  There was another officer next to him now. This one sat with a red-headed Irish harlot on his knee. He was not so perfumed as the last officer. He wore a three-day beard and rough moustaches.

  ‘What use is it, son? What use to try to bring law to bear here?’

  ‘At least we draw a pay cheque, Inspector.’

  ‘Inspector?’

  Nixon looked and saw the ensign on his shirt’s torn shoulder. His civilian shirt was at the hotel’s laundry. The ensign meant sergeant. But no matter.

  He motioned to the barman. Tapped the rim of his glass.

  ‘Pour for my friend and his lady too, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector.’

  ‘To your health.’

  He took a swig and called for another drink.

  Said the officer, ‘True, you’ll never rid this backcountry of cockfightin and bull-baitin and bare-knuckle brawlin.’

  ‘Cockfighting? Prize fightin? Healthy pastimes in my book. Necessary opiates. No, I remember back in … where was it? … Charters Towers. On the outskirts of the town eleven men outraged a Serbian girl till she lay dead. She’d been defenceless. Friendless and alone. Now what do you do about that? What did they do? I’ll tell you. The man who led the pack was flogged twenty-five strokes. Twice in two days. Thereafter he walked with a stoop. The girl stayed raped and dead. The man stayed an evildoer in his heart. I know it by what I was told thereafter. If he’d been black or a Chinaman he’d have been shot without a trial. But you’d see him goin along the road, hear the drums and tambourines of the churches sound – they made him attend the church – while he watched the schoolyard out the window and watched the girls walking home. They say there’s only peace through flogging. Aye, and perhaps they’re right. After the flogging that son of a bitch was peaceful. But it was not the peace of the good. Is that a peace we should desire? The peace of fear? Is that why you and I are here?’

  He filled his hip flask from the whisky bottle and poured another shot into his glass. The gas lamps were going off now along the street. He thought again of Shorncliffe at Moreton Bay, the people cheering at the lights flashing on the pier. He was there the first time they lit them. The mayor had made a speech that sounded strange even to a boy. About the lights preventing crime. They were pretty those lights. But there was no crime in that coastal town. Which nonentity neither increased nor decreased due to the firing of a row of lights against the ocean.

  He turned to tell the officer about the years he had spent up north, but the officer and the Irish prostitute had gone to one of the upstairs rooms. So he recalled it to himself.

  He had worked around Maytown on the Palmer River goldfields. Brothels outnumbered the public houses. The commissioner had said he was to join the ‘lions of justice’. Nixon laughed, he still had the letter somewhere. He was a lieutenant in charge of a district the size of a small European country and the population, not counting slaves, of an Arctic wilderness. But you had to count slaves, as they were always involved somehow in the daily business of rape and murder. He remembered the Chinese coming down dirt roads from the Cape with poles across their shoulders, carrying their tea and flour and mining tools on those poles and in the chests they dragged behind them. One day a tribe of Aborigines lay in ambush. They attacked the Chinese at dawn – those who could not run – the infirm and the women and children – and these were burnt. Right after that you never saw the British and the Chinese get on so well. But the goodwill lasted months only, and he remembered riding north out of Calcifer and seeing Chinese dying of dysentery from heat and exhaustion and tropical fever – dying on the sides of the road like dogs – and white men riding past them without stopping their horses. He remembered the inspector out there having tea and scones with a hired killer called Bill Rhode who boasted of having spent his life shooting ‘niggers’ and that he would be happy to turn his sights on the Chinks if the government ever called for it. There were fights in the field, too. Between settlers and itinerant Chinese and lawmen and just about everybody else but Quakers. Muzzle-loading guns and Snider rifles were traded and they made disputes short, though plenty difficult to bring any justice to bear on afterwards, as typically the best part of every party was dead by the time he arrived, and it didn’t seem to make much sense to make arrests out of the cowering few who remained, or to chase a guilty cane slasher into the scrub where he would likely die of malaria or thirst in a week. In flood season all the water was bad and a man could die of thirst standing in water up to his belt, else drink it and die of dysentery a few days later. The Chinese fought among themselves with knives and cleavers. The Pekinese and Cantonese were always at odds. Those fights were terrible to have to clean up after. He remembered a man with a cleaver gone straight through his jaw, and he thought afterwards that if he could have, he would happily have given those two men revolvers to settle whatever matter of gold or women or opium it was that they had fought over.

  Some officers said there was a band of excommunicated myalls up there who were in the habit of picking off the small and fat Chinese for roasting. They reckoned you could tell by the cuts in the bones of the dead that they’d been eaten. He had never seen that or seen any other evidence of black cannibals, though everyone up there believed in them. Who knows, perhaps there were some. Why not? There were Irish cannibals. So he had heard. Rumour said the Aborigines had converted a cave just off the track to the Palmer into a devil’s kitchen where they hung the bodies of the Chinese by their pigtails until they were roasted on the coals. That could not be true. He knew the caves there. But surely there were New Guinean cannibals. A New Guinean warrior brought on slave wages to slash cane, who ended up serving at an officer’s table, had admitted it to him. And the cane farmers kept young children from the fields at dusk.

  He looked out the window into the dark again. Plains of desolation …

  He thought of the last time he had gone after Jim Kenniff. Staring at the walls of the gorge where the man had disappeared like a phantom. Then glimpsing him out of rifle range at the top of the escarpment. Standing his horse as though he wanted to be seen. Then he vanished for good. Those walls were unclimbable. And to go back the way he had come and circle the gorge would take days. So he and Doyle had gone back to the station to cigarettes and whisky while Jim Kenniff took paths only he knew through the ranges and into the west, or perhaps down to the border. It seemed not to matter. If they didn’t get the gang this season, they would get them the next … but that chance never came. Not until now. And once more he had lost it.

  He did not remember leaving the bar and going up the stairs to his room. But he woke in the room the next morning. He washed and dressed and had black tea with fried bread and eggs at an eatery across the road. He rode west through towns and over plainland until he no longer knew where he was nor where he meant to go.

  He was drinking whisky in yet another saloon when he heard a thud and a woman screaming on the street. He looked out the window. The street was dark and he could make out nothing. He got up and went onto the veranda. A man was dashing a girl’s head against the hitching rail of the hotel. The girl’s calico dress was bloody. A small crowd of white prostitutes and patrons had gathered. All quiet. The man swore and took the girl’s hair and brought her face into the gaslight.

  Nixon drew his revolver and pulled back the hammer.

  ‘Once more and I’ll shoot you
dead.’

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Police.’

  ‘This fuckin bitch told lies to my wife. My wife left me cause of this fuckin darkie harlot.’

  The girl said nothing. The man held her up off the dirt road by the collar of her dress. She was only half-conscious.

  Nixon kept his revolver trained between the man’s eyes.

  The man cried out again.

  ‘What would you do if it were you?’

  ‘Not what you’re doing.’

  ‘This little bitch has lost me everything! I ask you, as one white man to another, what would you do?’

  ‘Not lie with a harlot if I was married. And not marry if I was wont to lie with harlots. Go home.’

  ‘I don’t have a home to go to.’

  He wrapped the girl’s hair round his wrist and made to dash her head against the hitching rail and Nixon pulled the trigger and shot him dead.

  The crowd of prostitutes gasped. Now all the patrons of the hotel were on the veranda or at the windows. The girl lay face down in a trough. Nixon pulled her out. She was still breathing. The publican came onto the veranda.

  ‘What the hell have you done, man?’

  ‘I was compelled. I’m an officer.’

  One of the prostitutes spoke up.

  ‘It’s true, Bill. Frank McDonald was going to kill that kid.’

  The publican glared at Nixon.

  ‘You bloody fool. I don’t know who you are or what your jurisdiction is. But it isn’t here. And the man you just shot has standing. Get the hell away from my hotel.’

  Nixon scanned the faces on the veranda. There was no sympathy. The publican grabbed his collar and shook him.

  ‘Get on your horse and run.’

  An ageing prostitute broke from the others on the veranda and took his arm and shook him out of his daze. She walked him towards his horse but he shook her off and went back for the girl.

  He carried her to the horse. He took his horse by the bridle and lifted the girl onto the saddle. She fit between him and the pommel.

  ‘Which way?’

  The prostitute pointed.

  He rode to the outskirts of town, to a place of tents and shacks.

  An old black woman saw the horse and the girl and ran shrieking into one of the tents. A second woman came out and took the horse by the bit.

  She led them to a shack of galvanised iron and rotting timber.

  Nixon got off his horse and let the girl fall on his shoulder. He took her inside and set her down on a mat on the dirt floor.

  The black woman lit a candle. She took a rag and dipped it in a bucket of water and washed the girl’s face. The girl’s skin was broken above the eye. Nixon took out his flask and doused the wound with whisky. He took bandages from his saddlebags and wrapped them round her forehead. He asked the woman if the girl was hers but the woman said no. He held the girl’s head up a little and gave her water from his pouch. She vomited and he wiped her face and gave her another drink. The woman left. Nixon sat by the girl while she slept.

  When he woke the girl’s eyes were open. She said,

  ‘I’m thirsty.’

  His water pouch was slung across his chest on a strip of leather. He took it and brought it to her lips. She took the pouch in her hands and squeezed.

  ‘A little at a time.’

  He took back the pouch and drank.

  ‘Where are we? An old lubra stopped my horse and pulled me in here when she saw you.’

  The girl nodded.

  ‘What happened to the man who hit me?’

  ‘Hit you? That’s one way to call it.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘I shot him.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The girl nodded.

  ‘He wasn’t a very bad man.’

  ‘He would have killed you.’

  She nodded again and sighed. Nixon took another drink and offered the girl the pouch.

  ‘You don’t believe it? I’ve seen black girls murdered and kicked into dry creeks for no better reason than that a white man felt guilty for lying with them. You talked to this one’s wife.’

  ‘I never talked to anyone. He never told me he had a wife.’

  A gust of wind came in the paneless window and flushed the candlelight. The light lit the girl’s face. Her skin glowed. Her almond eyes were emerald.

  ‘My God.’ He breathed deep. ‘You’re the most beautiful sav–’

  In settled districts they were blacks; on the frontier, savages. He had been so long out here.

  ‘You have a pretty face.’

  She stared at him and did not smile or speak. Nixon sighed.

  ‘I’m sorry. What tribe is this we’re camped with?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’ve run to here from further west. Men said they were spearing cattle and setting fire to grass. They say the women on the place they were on gave them poison flour and then sent the native police after them. But the native police don’t like towns. So they stay here.’

  Nixon nodded and took a swig of whisky from his flask. The girl watched.

  ‘Can I drink?’

  ‘Not tonight. It will make your blood run, and you’ve lost too much already.’

  ‘I feel good.’

  ‘That’s because you’ve vomited and you’re light-headed. That good feeling will go away soon and in an hour you’ll have the worst headache you’ve ever had in your life. Maybe you can have a little drink then if you like. Anyway, liquor goes too quick through black blood.’

  ‘The headache’s coming now. The drink will help. My father was Chinese. The Chinks can drink like fish.’

  ‘Aye. That’s true. But your eyes, who are your mother’s people?’

  The girl shrugged.

  ‘I got taken to a mission.’

  ‘I reckon she must have been of the deep desert people. I’ve seen your colour eyes out there.’

  The girl shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Nixon took another swig of whisky.

  ‘Why didn’t you stay at the mission?’

  ‘I was not well treated. I ran away.’

  He nodded.

  ‘What is your work, sir?’

  ‘Policeman.’

  ‘Why are you out here?’

  ‘I was hunting outlaws. One in particular. Now my work is …’ He laughed. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘What was the outlaw’s name?’

  ‘Jim Kenniff.’

  The girl frowned. Then averted her eyes.

  ‘Will you still be here in an hour?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said that in an hour I’ll have the worst headache in the world, and you’ll give me a drink then.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be here. I have nowhere else to go tonight. Perhaps I can lie down here and sleep. Is there another mat?’

  ‘You can lie with me.’

  He frowned. Stared into her eyes that gave nothing. He thought,

  Does she want a drink that bad? But it could not be that.

  Then she turned her face away from the candlelight.

  ‘I’m sorry. I must look terrible. I know other girls if you want a girl tonight.’

  ‘It isn’t that.’

  They sat in silence.

  He passed her the whisky flask.

  ‘Take a very little.’ He smiled. ‘And put it in the Chinaman’s part of your belly.’

  She nodded and took the flask.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I’m twelve since I started counting. And that was when I learnt to count at the mission. So I think I must be at least seventeen.’

  ‘They taught you to talk nice there. You talk better than I do.’

  ‘Speak.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She put out her hand.

  ‘Can I have another sip of the whisky?’

  He gave her the flask.

  ‘A little one.’

  She took the flask and drank.<
br />
  She smiled.

  ‘Jim Kenniff is very handsome.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  She choked a little on the whisky. She wiped her mouth.

  ‘I’ve seen his picture in a paper. He’s famous, isn’t he?’

  Nixon laughed and took back the flask and drank.

  ‘I spose so. He and his brother. Though most of what people say about them is lies.’

  ‘What do people say?’

  ‘It’s foolishness. Fairytales that keep young boys in awe and grown men frightened to do their duty.’

  ‘What fairytales?’

  Nixon shrugged and laughed.

  ‘That bullets pass through him like he isn’t there. That he can turn invisible – that the Aborigines where he grew up taught him how. That he’s been shot many times, but gets up and walks away from his own body. Mostly fool things like that. Or things that can be easily explained. That he can be in two places at once.’

  ‘How is that explained?’

  ‘His brother looks like him. And a man who goes flat on the ground and crawls so his enemies have nothing to shoot at can seem like he’s suddenly appeared when he stands. I’ve played that trick myself.’ Nixon took a drink of whisky. ‘But stranger things than those.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘That he sees things yet to pass – can predict a man’s death. That he permanently runs a temperature that can break a thermometer.’

  The girl laughed.

  ‘That isn’t true.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  She looked quickly up at him.

  ‘Because you’d burn your clothes.’

  ‘Ah, indeed. But just about every fool thing you can imagine gets said.’ He smiled at the girl’s smiling green eyes. She palmed her forehead. ‘You want to be asleep when that headache comes in earnest, child.’