by Paul Howarth
And all the while Tommy cradled Mary against him, held her body tight to his. She wasn’t waking. Was hardly even breathing, so far as he could tell. Her head lolled forward and hung there; her body was cool and limp. He felt for a pulse but couldn’t find one, clumsily fingering her neck. Difficult enough to keep her upright, to keep Beau steady on the track, to follow Billy’s outline, the shape of him, pale shirt flapping in the moonlight, the glint of their two rifles strapped across his back.
The track opened into a clearing ringed by trees. Billy slowed, and when Tommy drew alongside him he saw the reason why: a candle flame quivering in the darkness, hovering across the clearing as if magically conjured there.
“Alright, far enough. You the McBride boys?”
They stood the horses and peered into the gloom. The outline of the watchman was only just visible behind his lantern flame. Thin body, ragged clothes; a sickly, hoary face. He held the lantern above his head and in the other hand, braced against his hip, was a twin-barreled shotgun, pointed their way.
“We need help,” Billy said. “Blacks got us.”
The watchman tilted his head. “Got you how?”
“How d’you think—please, she’s hurt bad.”
“Her sleeping there?”
“She’s not sleeping,” Tommy said. “She’s shot.”
The watchman sniffed and looked about. “I wasn’t told about no girl.”
Billy said, “I heard there was a medic?”
“Aye, there’s a medic.”
“Come on, then. We need to bloody go.”
“Touchy bugger, ain’t ya? Alright. Toss down them guns.”
“We’re not here for any trouble,” Tommy said. “We’re asking for help.”
“I heard you. But the boss says get their guns, so I got to get your guns.”
Billy unstrapped the rifles and threw them on the ground. The man juggled the lantern and the shotgun and stooped to pick them up, his eyes upturned, the pale oval of his crown as he bent, then he was backing away again, fumbling the rifles in his arms.
“Yous lot stay put while I get my horse out.”
The lantern mapped the clearing as he retreated: a smoldering fire, kicked over in haste, outside a windowless hut. The hut was walled with thin slats, no door, barely wide enough to lie down. The watchman went around the back, into the trees, and emerged with a scraggy-looking mare. He slung the two rifles onto his shoulder, then climbed into the saddle and brought the mare to where Tommy and Billy waited. He held the lantern to his face, grinned a toothless grin, and blew out the candle flame.
“On you go, then,” he told them, his shotgun wagging. “And don’t get no funny ideas—there’s a fistful of shot for both of yous in here.”
Single file, they followed the trail out of the clearing and on toward the station compound. Billy leading, then Tommy, the watchman close behind. He wouldn’t let them gallop. A steady trot the most he’d allow. As they rode, he started whistling an old Irish ditty Tommy had heard his mother sing, something about a girl left behind. The song filled his eyes immediately and though tears dribbled down his cheeks, he did not wipe them and did not sob. The watchman finished his tune and moved on to the next, and Tommy held tight to his sister and blinked his eyes dry.
* * *
They came upon the workers’ camp before they reached the homestead. A village of rough-built barns and slab huts lit by the glow of scattered campfires. Smoke hung over the rooftops. Voices rose in laughter or quarrel, then quickly fell away. A smell of burned wood and meat char and the heavy stink of men. Dogs began barking as the three horses neared, and some of the stockmen drifted out between the buildings and stood at the trackside watching the party pass. Arms folded, picking at their teeth, swigging on their grog, cradling their pipes or pinching hand-rolled durries to their lips, as the watchman like some crier announced:
“Got the McBride boys here, fellas! Bloody blacks have done ’em in!”
There wasn’t any sympathy. A muted grumbling, some shifted or shook their heads—if anything, Tommy felt a kind of contempt. He caught a few of the men eyeing Mary and hitched down her dress, turning her into him until they were clear of the camp and onto a long broad track leading straight uphill to the homestead, perched high on the hillside, ablaze with candlelight. A grand two-story mansion, painted brilliant white and cobwebbed in ornate metalwork. Lanterns burned along the verandah and down the wide staircase, yet the hollow beneath the stilts was so dark and indistinct from the shadowy hillside that the house appeared to float there, unanchored, ten feet above the ground.
Billy dismounted short of the stairs, ran to Tommy’s side.
“Hold up!” the watchman shouted. “I ain’t said to get down!”
He was brandishing his shotgun but they ignored him. Tommy lowered Mary into Billy’s arms, then dismounted himself, and together they carried her to the stairs, her arms draped behind their necks, her head hanging forward and her feet scraping through the dirt, then thudding against each step as they began to climb.
“I said wait, you bastards, before I—”
“Alright, Jessop, that’ll do. You can put that thing away.”
Tommy and Billy halted. Sullivan stood framed in light at the top of the stairs. He paused a moment, then came down very slowly, step by step, rolling back his shirtsleeves, fold by careful fold. The shirt was white and freshly pressed, and he wore slack green trousers tucked into high leather boots whose polish glinted in the lantern light. Braces dangled loose at his sides. Cheeks smooth and slightly flushed, damp hair neatly combed. Total calm in his face, like they’d just popped by for tea.
“Get their weapons, did you?”
“Yessir,” the watchman said.
“So, then, boys,” Sullivan called, “what kind of trouble have you come to make for me now?”
“She’s hurt, blacks got her,” Billy blurted. “They killed our daddy and ma.”
Sullivan paused. Midfold, midstep. He tilted his head to one side, narrowed his eyes. “Blacks, you say?”
Billy nodded furiously. “We was gone swimming when they came.”
“And the girl?”
“Shot,” Tommy said. “She’s not woken up.”
“Has she spoke?”
“No.”
“But she’s alive? You’re sure?”
“I don’t know,” Tommy said. “Maybe only just.”
Sullivan considered all three of them for what seemed a very long time, then he snapped into life and called over their heads: “Fetch Weeks! Now, man! Go!”
The watchman turned his horse and galloped away along the track. Sullivan hobbled quickly down the stairs. He hoisted Mary into his arms and carried her up to the house, her hands and feet swinging, the little bunches in her hair, Sullivan talking over his shoulder as he climbed:
“Don’t worry now, boys, you’ve done all you can. You were right to bring her here. Weeks’ll take care of her, see she’s alright. Let’s get the two of you warm, cleaned up, some food in you, must have been a hell of a ride . . .”
The air inside the house was close and scented with flowers, and the boys followed Sullivan along a wide hallway with a maroon carpet runner and green gold-leaf wallpaper as thick as a pelt to the touch, the walls themselves decorated with gold sconces and gold-framed paintings of sun-blushed English hills. The sconces flickered as they hurried past, marching toward a vast white atrium with a broad, sweeping staircase rising high above, until Sullivan stopped abruptly, just short of the atrium, beside a white wood-paneled door.
“Wait in there, the pair of you. I’ll have some food brought.”
“Where you taking her?” Tommy asked.
“Upstairs, lie her down. Somewhere quiet so Weeks can work.”
“No, we’re staying with her.”
Sullivan’s jaw clenched. “Look, you asked for my help and I’m giving it. Nearest other doctor is Bewley. What d’you want to do?”
“He didn’t mean nothing,” Billy said,
and Tommy looked down at the floor. Sullivan nodded. He hefted Mary’s weight and carried her across the atrium to the stairs. A housemaid came running to speak with him. Sullivan glanced back at the boys, dismissed her, then mounted the stairs and disappeared from view.
“You trust him?” Tommy asked.
“Why not?”
“Daddy didn’t.”
“Daddy’s dead.”
Billy’s words shocked both of them. He turned away ashamedly; it took Tommy a long while before he followed his brother into the room, a drawing room, roughly equal in size to their entire house. Separately they explored it like a museum. Rich wooden furniture, finished in a waxy sheen and adorned with trinkets of silver and gold. A sofa, the cushions thick and plump; ornate wooden chairs upholstered to match the papered walls. A fire burned in the cavernous hearth, its flames reflected in real window glass, and beside the fireplace was a tree unlike any Tommy had ever seen. It had a million little needles and was decorated with baubles, candles, and gifts. An angel sat askew on the topmost branch, twisted like she was ready to fall.
The housemaid brought a bowl of washing water, two towels, and a bar of soap, then returned with a platter of food and a pot of English tea. She was young and white, their age or thereabouts, could have been Mary in a few years, Tommy thought. “Thank you,” he said, but the girl hurried out of the room.
They washed their hands in the bowl, dried them on the towels, a trace of blood staining the water when they were done. Mary’s blood. Blood that should have been inside her, not swirling in some bowl. Tommy couldn’t look at it. He turned away and went to the other table, inspected the platter the maid had brought. Meat, bread, cheeses, a few grapes. He picked up a grape and sniffed it.
“Don’t touch that,” Billy warned.
“Why not?”
“It ain’t right to be eating.”
“But I’m hungry.”
“I don’t care. I’m telling you, it ain’t right.”
They stared at each other. On the far wall, an upright pendulum clock chimed the quarter hour. Tommy wilted and broke the stare.
“What’ll we do, Billy? What now?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head very slowly. “I don’t know.”
Running footsteps sounded on the outside stairs, then thudded mutely along the hall. A man burst into the drawing room. Bedraggled and panting, he carried a black medical bag in his hand, yet more resembled a bushranger than any doctor Tommy knew.
“Where’s she at?” the man asked. “I was told a girl’s been shot?”
“Our sister,” Billy said. “She’s upstairs.”
“Right you are.”
He went to leave but Billy called him back: “You’re the doctor?”
“In a way.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I’m actually a veterinarian, but—”
“A what?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I know what I’m doing, we’re all roughly the same underneath, you know . . .” He hurried away, his footsteps crossing the atrium, then padding up the stairs.
Billy glared after him, at the open door. His cheeks were flushed and his jaw offset and his head bobbed minutely up and down. “A vet?” he mumbled. He looked at Tommy. “A bloody vet?”
“A medic, you said.”
“That’s what I was told.”
Billy went over to the fire, lost himself in the flames. Tommy laid some cheese on a slice of bread, took a bite, and retched. The taste of the cheese curdled in his mouth, the bread became a thick and claggy wad. He fished it out again and placed the puttylike ball on the edge of the tray, then looked up to find Billy coming at him across the room, shoving him backward, shouting, “The hell’s wrong with you? Where you at? Where’s my brother gone, eh? You did nothing in the house, didn’t cry, didn’t scream, like it was any other fucking day, now you’re standing here eating while Mary’s getting fixed up by some vet and the others are still down there—”
“Boys, boys, boys. This isn’t doing anyone any good.”
Sullivan strode into the room. He stood directly between them, laid a hand on each of their shoulders, and squeezed. He was Tommy’s height, shorter than Billy, his eyes dark and faintly bloodshot, and up close the skin on his cheeks and nose was as pitted as rind.
“Now listen to me,” he said, still squeezing. “There’s no use fighting each other, understand? It’s not your fault what’s happened. It’s not your fault.”
Billy relented.
“Good,” Sullivan said, reaching between them for a slice of beef, which he folded into his mouth and chewed. “You eaten anything yet?”
“We’re not hungry,” Billy said.
“You should eat. Can’t do nothing without a feed. What about a drink? You want something stronger than tea?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Suit yourself,” Sullivan said, shrugging. He snatched a slice of bread from the platter and steered the boys around to the sofa, motioned for them to sit. Tommy sank awkwardly into the cushions, then shuffled forward to perch on the edge, as Sullivan positioned one of the wooden chairs in front of them, so close that when he sat down their knees almost touched.
He smiled and ate his bread. Watching them back and forth.
“What about Mary?” Billy asked him. “What’s that vet say?”
Sullivan answered between mouthfuls: “No news. Too soon.”
“He even know what he’s doing up there?”
Sullivan flapped a hand dismissively, went on eating, watching them all the while. The boys waited. Finally he popped the last of the bread into his mouth, brushed the crumbs from his hands, and leaned forward on the chair.
“Let’s get this done with, shall we? Which of you wants to tell me what went on down there?”
His gaze slid past them as Locke came into the room. Both Tommy and Billy turned. The overseer skulked toward the sofa and leaned against the wall, working a lump of tobacco around his mouth. He nodded awkwardly at the two of them and scuffed his bare scalp with a white-bandaged hand.
“They were just starting,” Sullivan said. “On you go, boys.”
Tommy pressed his hands flat between his thighs and listened as Billy spoke. Telling them about the mustering and the time they’d all had of it these past few weeks, how glad Father had been for the rain. Then Wallabys, the chance to get away, the long ride home and the silence in the yard, not even a sound from the dogs.
One beside the other, tongues lolling, paws crossed; like they only slept.
And Tommy was right back there, standing in the clearing as Billy found Joseph’s revolver and offered it to him like a prize. Walking past the front railings, the tread of Father’s boots, Billy crouched before him; coming up the steps.
His mouth hung slackly. His empty eyes stared. A fly crawled onto one of the eyeballs and sat in the corner of the lid, drinking.
Into the house. Bars of sunset streaking through the shuttered window, dust motes dancing; lifting back the curtain, Mother facedown on the bedroom floor.
Her feet were poking out, dirty and rough-skinned, the little buds of her toes.
Tommy was shaking. Rocking back and forth. Sullivan reached out and cupped his knee and Billy wasn’t talking anymore. Then Sullivan’s voice, coming in gradually, as if from very far away, or carried on a shifting wind, asking, “You alright, son? What’s his name again? Tommy? You alright?”
Tommy looked pleadingly at his brother; Billy only frowned. Sullivan stood and went to the drinks table, poured a measure into a crystal tumbler, held it for Tommy to take. He sipped at the drink, coughed, took another sip.
“Best Scotch outside Sydney,” Sullivan said, sitting. “That’ll see you right.”
Tommy drank the whiskey. Gradually the trembling eased. Sullivan turned his attention to Billy again.
“How are you sure it was this Joseph?”
“We found his old five-shot, here . . .”
Billy pulled the revolver from his waist
band; Locke levered himself from the wall and reached immediately for his ankle piece, but Sullivan gestured for calm. He took the revolver from Billy, turning it over in his hands.
“It’s empty,” Billy said. “I think the dogs was speared. Both was run through.”
Sullivan glanced at Locke, now resettled against the wall.
“And this was his weapon? You’re sure about that?”
“Yessir. We were there when Arthur gave it. Joseph had it with him when he left.”
Sullivan was still inspecting the revolver. “He’s the one Ned let go?”
“We found those two natives hanging in that tree. Joseph didn’t like it, wanted to cut them down, take them back to his people—he’s Kurrong, see, same as them.”
Sullivan looked knowingly at Locke, took a long breath, shook his head.
“Fucking Kurrong,” he said. “So, him and Ned argued, the boy took off, might have got together with a few more of them, then came back for revenge. Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing he could have done on his own.”
Billy nodded. Sullivan leaned and handed the revolver to Locke.
“And what about the other one?” Sullivan said. “The old boy—where was he?”
“Gone too. Daddy gave him a spell. You think he was involved?”
“Probably, son. Blacks side with each other. Always have.”
“Arthur didn’t do it,” Tommy said. They all looked at him.
“You don’t know that,” Billy said.
“I do. He never would. He’s not even Kurrong.”
“The tribe doesn’t really matter,” Sullivan said. “Like I say, blacks side with other blacks. Sorry, boys, but it all seems pretty clear to me.” He slid his hands over his thighs and drew himself tall in the chair. “A fucking outrage, that’s what this is, same as Cullin-la-Ringo, Hornet Bank. And right here in my own bloody yard.”
Locke spat discreetly into a handkerchief, balled it, put it away.
“Arthur didn’t do it,” Tommy repeated.
“We need to get out after them,” Billy said. “Now. Tonight.”
“Well now, let’s sleep on it,” Sullivan said. “There’s plenty time for all that, but we’re not riding anywhere tonight. Tomorrow we’ll get ’em buried, we’ve an ex-priest who can say a few words, do it right. I always respected your father. Might not have seen eye to eye, but I respected him. And your mother, of course.”