Only Killers and Thieves

by Paul Howarth

  “Hello, family! Daddy’s home!”

  Mother muttered darkly under her breath. Mary ran to him and they embraced, Father spinning her, then stumbling, laughing, before setting her back on her feet.

  “Well? Is this the only bloody welcome I get?”

  Tommy glanced at the others. Billy stared blankly at Father. Mother sucked on her teeth. Father smoothed down his hair and Tommy saw yellow bruising around his left eye. And his shirt wasn’t just open; it was ripped at the armpit, flapping at the seam.

  “So?” Billy asked. “What happened?”

  “It’s obvious what happened,” Mother said. “He’s been on the grog.”

  Father was grinning. He pulled Mary into his side and shrugged.

  “Well?” Mother said.

  “Well what?”

  She flicked her hand up and down, meaning the state of him.

  “A man’s allowed a bloody drink, Liza. After all we’ve been through.”

  “But did you sell them?” Billy asked, and Father whirled in mock surprise.

  “Shit, Arthur! The mob! We forgot the bloody mob!” He started laughing. Arthur managed a smile. Father said, “Of course I bloody sold them. But you might as well know, the state those buggers were in, all I could get was for boiling down.”

  Billy cursed and kicked the ground. “Meaning what?” Mother asked.

  “Meaning just that.”

  “So we’re short?”

  “Short would be the least of it.”

  “Spruhl wouldn’t sell to me. Said we owed too much.”

  “I’ll straighten that bastard out.”

  “The whole of Bewley was against us,” Tommy said. “Like we’d been marked.”

  Father pointed at him, squinting. “Exactly, Tommy. Fucking marked.”

  “Call it what you like,” Mother said. “We still have to eat.”

  “I already told you, I’ll straighten it out. Anyway, look what I brought ye.”

  He gestured toward Arthur, who began untying something from the back of his saddle. A thick woolen bundle, which Tommy first took for a sheepskin blanket or rug, but when Arthur carried it forward and he saw the hooves and dark head hanging, he realized was a whole sheep.

  Father directed Arthur to give the sheep to Billy; he took the weight with a grunt and recoiled from the smell. “Thing’s gone,” he said.

  “Like hell it’s gone. Get it cleaned up, both of you. We’ll have it tonight.”

  “You find that thing or kill it?” Mother asked him. “You’d best not have paid for it, Ned.”

  Father didn’t answer her. He winked and tapped his nose, then set off with a stumble in the direction of the house. He leaned in to give Mother a kiss, but she pushed him away on the chest. “You’ll be needing a bath before there’s any of that,” she told him. “Two baths, three!” Which at least raised a trickle of a laugh.

  As Arthur gathered Buck’s reins and led him away, Tommy tried to catch the old man’s eye. Arthur looked at him only briefly, smiled and shook his head, then set off for the stables with both horses in tow. Tommy turned to watch him, but Billy was at his side, ordering him to take his share of the sheep’s weight. Together they carried the carcass down to the old slab of red gum that served as a butchering block, and set about gutting it, cleaning it, and removing what was edible of its meat.

  * * *

  The following day, Father took the dray to Bewley and settled up with Spruhl, came back long after nightfall with a minimum of rations and a rum crate whose rattling could be heard from inside the house. They all sat listening. Mother looked up from her needlework, the children paused their game of cards, as Father slurred out a ballad, singing his soul to the stars. Mary started giggling, which set Tommy off too, but Mother stared bitterly in the direction of his voice, then drew a long breath and went back to her darning without a word.

  It was a strange time between them. Tommy didn’t fully understand. Father stopped working, claimed there was nothing to be done, spent his days drinking on the verandah or loafing about the sheds. He would carry out odd bits of carpentry, fixing things that didn’t need to be fixed; he spent hours whittling Mary the kind of animal figurine he used to make when she was young. He and Mother spoke in snatched exchanges and twice Tommy found her in tears. Once in the scullery, then again in their bedroom: she stood in the corner, facing the wall, a handkerchief clutched in her hand. When he drew back the curtain she flinched and yelled, “Can I not just have a minute on my own!” and Tommy let the curtain fall closed again.

  They saw little of Arthur that week. He looked after the horses, the dogs, kept out of everyone’s way. The few times Tommy caught him skulking between the buildings they’d exchange a greeting, then he’d move on again. Avoiding the family, not wanting to be seen. None of the others seemed to notice, or if they did they didn’t care. No one visited him, Mother sent no food parcels, as if he weren’t there.

  One morning after breakfast Tommy crossed the yard to the bunkhouse and walked along the outside wall to the back door. Whites weren’t supposed to use that door but he didn’t want Arthur to slip away. He looked in the window as he passed. Arthur lifted his head. He was standing by the bed, an open sack in his hand, and was in that same pose when Tommy came into the room.

  “You’re leaving?” Tommy said.

  “Nah, just heading off for a spell.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Dunno. Walkabout, I reckon. See some of the old bush.”

  “What for? What’s happened?”

  Arthur smiled warmly. “Nothing, mate. It’s just got that it’s time.”

  “Are you coming back? Does Daddy know?”

  “Yeah, we talked about it. You’ll have seen your old man’s not going so well—best I take off for a bit. We all could use it. Don’t worry, be back soon enough.”

  “When?”

  “Couple of weeks. I’ve not exactly got it planned.”

  Tommy stood there looking at him. Arthur scratched his beard.

  “What happened in Lawton?” Tommy said.

  “How d’you mean?”

  “You’ve been off ever since.”

  Arthur waved a hand, dismissed it.

  “Did you two fight?” Tommy asked. “Is that how his eye got busted up?”

  “That wasn’t me. Could have been, but it wasn’t me.”

  “Who was it, then?”

  “Some whitefella. Blokes drink then they fight, specially in a drought. Does things to a fella’s mind, the drought. Sends him madder than the cows.” He smiled quickly, went on, “Me and the boss—I’ve known him a long time, we’ll be right, but it’s for the best I leave awhile. This last month . . . look, when I come back the rum’ll be gone and we can get on with the new mob. You never know, Tommy; this smell in the air, it might even bloody rain.”

  They didn’t see him off. Tommy went on with his chores, then caught sight of Arthur riding past the cattle yards, a solitary figure heading out into the scrub. He didn’t look back. Tommy watched until he was no more than a speck on the sun-drenched plain, then swung the ax and splintered the next log and set the two halves on the pile.

  By suppertime they all knew, sitting around the table, eating the last of the mutton and questioning Father in much the same way as Tommy had Arthur: Where was he going? How long for? Would he be back? Had he gone to find Joseph, maybe?

  “I’m not his bloody keeper,” Father said, waving his fork around. “Arthur’s a free man. Anyhow, I’m sick of his bloody whining. Bloke’s had a face on him like a chook’s arse. Do him good to get away.”

  “Why?” Tommy asked. “What went on at the yards?”

  Father shrugged and picked the mutton off his fork, sat chewing it around and around. “Same as always happens at the yards. Blokes get talking. He didn’t like what was said. I can’t blame him, neither. Not so soon after them two buggers in that tree. It was all blacks this and blacks that, who’s done what to them, what they plan to do. And there’s
Arthur, listening to it all, no one minding their tongue, like he’s not a real blackfella, least not from how he acts. You can see why they’d think it. He can’t have it both ways.”

  “Will he be safe?” Mother said quietly. “All on his own out there?”

  “Ah, don’t worry about Arthur. The bush is in his blood. I don’t know what you’re all being such sooks about, anyway—him going saves us another wage!”

  He broke into a hoarse laugh, took a drink, then laughed again. He reached over and slapped Billy on the chest, and they all sat in silence, watching him, as he speared another chunk of mutton and chewed it openmouthed.

  * * *

  When the dogs started barking and Tommy saw a horse coming down through the northern paddocks, he thought it might be Arthur returned. He’d been gone over a week, though it felt much longer, but as Tommy drifted to join the others gathering in the yard, he saw that the rider was white and scrawny, a boy, no resemblance to Arthur at all.

  “You lot stay behind me,” Father said, pushing between them. “And if I say to get inside, I mean bloody get inside.”

  Father had his carbine with him. He kept it pointed at the ground. The boy rode in cautiously, slowing his horse past the cattle yards, then walking it to where the family stood. The horse jittered as it came. The boy steadied it with his hand. He was wearing a dirty shirt and trousers that would have fit a man twice his size. The hems were double-rolled, the waist pinched tight by a rope belt. He took off his hat and scuffed his blond hair; his eyes found the carbine and darted between the assembled faces and the weapon Father held.

  “A message from Mr. Sullivan,” the boy announced.

  Father jutted his chin. “What message?”

  “It’s wrote down—here.”

  He shoved his hand into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, offered it to Father, but Father didn’t move. The boy jabbed the paper in his direction and Father took the note without unfolding it. “Did you read it?” he asked.

  The boy shook his head. “I just brung it.”

  “But you didn’t read it?”

  “I can’t. I don’t know how.”

  Father weighed the boy carefully. The boy squirmed under his gaze. Father still held the note unopened; without taking his eyes from the boy, he scrunched it into a ball and tossed it on the ground.

  “You ain’t going to read it neither?” the boy said.

  “I don’t have to. I already know what it says.”

  “But how can you, when you ain’t read it?”

  “Go on now. You did your job.”

  “You ain’t got no message for the boss in reply?”

  “No,” Father told him. “On your way.”

  The boy sat there puzzling the exchange, staring at the note for which he’d ridden all that distance. Father waved the carbine and the boy flinched, turned his horse around. Nobody moved until he was clear of the yard, then without saying anything Father walked past his family and on toward the sheds.

  Mary was nearest the paper. She snatched it up, unraveled it, and they all crowded round to see. The ink was smudged, the letters bleeding, but it was legible enough to read. There were only three words written: I’m waiting Ned, they said.

  10

  It began in a sudden skittering across the shingle roof. The noise woke Tommy with a start. He lay there listening. An irregular thudding sound, maybe insects, or the claws of flying foxes scrabbling to find grip. He could see nothing. Still fully dark outside. No moon, no stars, no movement in the shingle cracks. Tommy tried placing the sound. A faint hissing now, settling into a regular and steady din. Locusts, he figured, or a plague of some other kind . . . until something landed on his forehead and dribbled down his cheek and he bolted upright in bed and shouted the other two awake, and both Mary and Billy came grumbling from their dreams.

  “You hear that? The noise?”

  “What’s happening?” Mary asked groggily. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Listen. It’s raining. It’s bloody raining outside!”

  They leaped from their beds and were still hugging and jumping around the floor when Mother called from the other room. Through the curtain they stumbled, jostling and chattering, to where she stood by the open front door. She ran to embrace them, touching them fleetingly as if to prove to herself this wasn’t some dream, then together they bundled out into the downpour and found Father standing half-naked in the yard. He was wearing only his white long johns and with his pale body and sunburned arms looked spectral in the rain-washed darkness. He wasn’t moving. The water had flattened his hair and his trousers and he was gazing off toward the paddocks in the north.

  The others ran down the front steps. They tilted back their heads, opened their mouths, stuck out their tongues; Mother raised her nightgown and danced a little jig. Already the ground was churning under their feet and squelching between their toes, the rain fat and thick, proper wet rain, the kind of droplets that promised a million more. Tommy could feel them bursting on his skin. He fell still and closed his eyes and stretched out his hands and tried to count them as they hit. It was impossible. Like counting seeds. Around him the others were still laughing and shouting and jumping like fools, but when Tommy opened his eyes he saw that Father wasn’t with them anymore. He was walking slowly across the yard, as if drawn to something far away in the scrubs. The rain nearly swallowed him. It enveloped him until only the white of his long johns could be seen. Then they too were gone, as on the edge of the clearing, Father fell to the ground on his knees.

  * * *

  It rained for three full days, then in the sunshine of the fourth the earth steamed like it burned. Blankets of smoke rising and drifting across the ground, the air moist and close and fresh. The buildings creaked and ticked. The bush crackled as it dried and teemed with life, insects and animals awakening to a new world and curious to discover what had changed.

  Even Father seemed restored. The rain had energized him. He was still drinking—in celebration now, he claimed—but he spent his days jotting numbers in his pocket book, drawing sketches, making plans. He talked about digging a series of irrigation ditches, running them off the creek, and about the crops they could try if the rains kept up, once the soil was fertile and damp. They would take up dairying again, he thought; he would clean the old separator, get it working, make their prospects less reliant on beef. Easily done, so long as they all pitched in, though it was clear Mother and Mary would get the bulk of that work. Tommy teased Mary about her elevation to milkmaid; she countered that if she was a milkmaid, what did that make him? Milkman? Milk boy? Milk master, maybe? And just like that, they were all laughing and hoping together again.

  Before the rum ran out and Father got his plans straight and put them properly to work, Tommy and Billy set off for Wallabys one day before noon. The waterhole wouldn’t be full, but there was a chance it might be deep enough for paddling, which was no bad thing since neither of them could really swim. Mother and Father were little better, so it had fallen to Arthur to give them the scant instruction they’d received. Tommy still remembered the first time he saw him swimming. As the two boys floundered, Arthur had slid through the water as smooth and graceful as an eel.

  It was a two-hour ride, southwest through a country reborn by the rain. Gone was the sepia dust haze, replaced by a rich palette of green and gold and brown. The cicadas were out, screaming with joy; cockatoos chorused in the trees. Across the plains they spied emus standing motionless in the scrub, their fat feathered bodies blending with the fat tussock grass, noticeable only by the rubbery contortion of their necks, dipping up and down. Roos loped along, pausing to forage, or reclined in little mobs in the shade. The boys didn’t try hunting them—they were too far away, the meat would only spoil—and instead rode happily together side by side in the sunshine, talking and joking and arguing over the best route to take.

  Wallabys was a waterhole you had to know about, invisible from the flat: at a gallop you’d
be airborne before you realized you’d left the ground. A deep horseshoe crater, sheer-walled, like a sinkhole in the earth, the walls layered in orange and ochre and red, chalky-white stains lining the rock face like scars. Birds nested in the crevices and shat onto the ledges below; trees grew improbably from the escarpment, twisting and reaching into the void. Water dribbled from an opening in the northern wall, falling weakly into a pool sparkling in the sunlight and nestled in a basin of rocks and trees and resurgent regrowth.

  They rode around the crater’s edge, peering over the drop, then followed the slope down to where a copse of trees hid a short canyon passable only on foot. They tied the horses and went through, clambering over boulders until they emerged onto a smooth, wide slab, where they stood looking out over the glittering pool, the waterfall drumming softly, the sun painting a rainbow in its spray.

  “Well?” Billy said. “What d’you reckon?”

  “Well nothing. Let’s go.”

  They set down their bags and rifles, stripped, and waded into the water, cool at first but good once they were in. At its deepest it reached only to their chests; they ducked beneath the surface and came up gasping, splashed and spat arcs into the air, took turns beneath the waterfall, which even at a dribble pummeled their heads and shoulders sore. Afterward they pulled on their trousers and lay baking on the rocks, each to his own slab, then sat together on a ledge, their feet dangling, sharing the tucker-bag Mother had made.

  “Should bring Mary next time,” Tommy said, chewing.

  “Mary? What for?”

  “She’d love this. Hardly remembers the last proper rain.”

  Billy laughed. “Be too busy milking, the way Daddy talks.”

  “She’s not so happy about it. Neither’s Ma.”

  “They needn’t worry. It won’t come off.”

  Tommy looked at him. “We’re starting after Christmas, he says.”

  “That’s the rum talking. Don’t get hooked in.”

  “You don’t think he’ll do it? What about them water troughs?”