by Paul Howarth
Behind him Jarrah rose slowly to his feet, stepped over Pope’s outstretched legs, and walked toward Locke, squinting at him, his lazy, half-closed eye. He was unarmed but his hands hung heavy at his sides, the fingers curled almost to fists.
Locke caught sight of him and chuckled. “Wait your turn, darkie. Whites before blacks is how it goes.”
Jarrah didn’t answer him. Advancing carefully, one step at a time. Locke turned to face him front on, only six feet between them now.
“Oh, aye? And what’s this?”
“Call back your boy,” Sullivan told Noone. “The hell’s he think he is?”
Noone was tamping tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. His eyebrows lifted and he smiled at Sullivan. But he didn’t call Jarrah off.
They fronted each other. Shadowy figures in the firelight, Locke’s pale head glistening. Physically they were even, similar height and build. Locke placed the bottle of rum carefully on the ground, then stood with his chin tucked and his good fist raised in an uncertain boxing pose. Jarrah waited. Locke rocked on his heels and ducked his head from side to side, weighing up his move, but comically, as if putting on a show. He paused, began laughing, then pulled back his fist and swung.
The punch looped wildly toward the trooper’s face; Jarrah parried it and coiled Locke’s arm inside his own, pinning it behind his back. He stepped forward, tightened his grip, and Locke arched his back and cried out, his injured arm twitching lamely at his side. Jarrah held him there awhile. Their faces were very close. Jarrah said something, but quietly, his voice a low rumble in the white man’s ear. He raised his free hand and held it above Locke’s face, the fingers clawed. Locke watched the hand fearfully. Jarrah lowered it toward the spear. He took hold of the broken shaft and rotated it slowly around. Locke’s eyes widened. He groaned in muted pain. Jarrah began inching out the spear, teasing it from the wound.
“Fucking—” Locke slurred, but no other words came.
As the spear left his body his mouth gaped, his legs buckled, his eyes rolled. Jarrah laid him on the ground. He tossed the spear stub aside. It tinkled on the stone and the sound echoed around the walls. The woman slid from the ledge and began begging him, her bound hands raised. Jarrah shoved her backward. She shuffled back onto the ledge. Jarrah returned to his place and sat down, took a turn on the pipe the troopers shared. They were struggling to hide their amusement, like some great mischief had just been performed.
Sullivan shook his head. “And you’ll stand for that, will you?”
“I’m not obliged to him, John. He hasn’t the temperament for this kind of work. Treats it like a sport, which it is not. It is not. I warned you both the last time. You should have left him on the farm.”
Noone pulled contemplatively on his pipe. Tommy watched Locke’s prone body and in the firelight could just make out the rise and fall of his chest, and a small pool of fresh blood collecting beneath him on the ground.
“You rub him up wrong,” Sullivan mumbled. “That’s all it is. But you let them treat a whitefella like that and there’ll be a mutiny next. Mark my words there will.”
“Their problem’s not with me.”
“All I’m saying is they’d better know their place. I shouldn’t have to watch my back against my own bloody men.”
“My men.”
“Last time I checked I was the one paying for all this.”
“Actually, Her Majesty’s government is footing the bill.”
“So what the hell am I buying, then?”
“You are paying me, not them. Buying my cooperation in your little charade, plus passage for yourself and your boys. You are buying my attention, John. The frontier is a big place. There are plenty other errands I could run.”
“Still. A bit of fucking respect wouldn’t hurt.”
“You’d be a fool not to be wary of them,” Noone said, smoking, staring into the fire. “All that money of yours, all that cattle, that land, even the color of your skin carries little weight out here. What do you think they care for all that? For your wealth, your authority back home? Don’t equate them to your houseboys; the two are not remotely alike. Truth is, my men only tolerate you in deference to me, your monkey man even less so. They are not civilized, they are not tame. If we did that to them, they’d be about as useful a gelded bull. The point is, John, the problem doesn’t lie with them but with you and Raymond and maybe even these two boys.”
He withdrew his pipe and gestured to the canyon, the sky, the country beyond.
“Look where we are. This isn’t your station anymore, isn’t even part of the colony, whatever the map says. You need to recognize that fact. Your so-called laws and principles, they do not apply here. White men come this far out and think they’re still in Queensland, but they’re not. This is blackfella country. We’re in their territory now.”
When the meal was over, Pope came and knelt at Locke’s side, peeled back his shirt collar, and cleaned his injured shoulder with rum. On a flat boulder top, he emptied a handful of leaves and berries and other bush pickings from a pigskin pouch, and began tearing and grinding them into a mixture that he moistened with saliva until it became a coarse yellow paste. He cupped the paste in his hands, warming it, kneading it, tossing it gently back and forth like a baker working dough, then knelt again and packed the putty into Locke’s wound. He pressed with his thumbs and then his palm, building the plug piece by piece, and through all of this Locke did not so much as flinch. A full half hour now he’d been out. Pope unraveled the bandage Locke wore on his hand and used it to dress the shoulder wound. He examined the injured hand, held it up to the firelight, and turned it around. The flesh was raw and mottled and not yet healed. Two well-spaced bite marks had punctured deep into the skin. He called over to Noone and asked what had bit him.
“Snake, so he said.”
“Bloody big snake with dog tooth that bugger,” Pope replied, letting the hand fall. He pushed himself to his feet and stood looking down on Locke. In the firelight Pope’s face was haggard and very old, and there was no emotion in his eyes. As indifferent to the creature beneath him as if it were a lame mule.
Wearily Noone rose too. He tapped his pipe into the fire and the dead tobacco hissed. “Bring the men,” he said. “Rabbit, watch the girl. And don’t let that fire go out, though I doubt this will take very long.”
He looked pointedly at Sullivan, who nodded and said, “Right you are,” rubbing his hands together like a feast had been proposed.
And with that Noone was gone, striding past the troopers and disappearing along the dark ravine. Jarrah and Mallee fetched the two men and dragged them up to their feet. They could hardly stand. Their chains were unlocked and unwound and they fell to the ground with a clang. Rabbit stooped and gathered the chains in his hands, and the captives were led into the ravine. Pope followed them out of camp. One by one they vanished into the cleft of the rocks, until all that remained was the sound of footsteps on bare stone and the whimpering pleas of the men.
Sullivan clapped his hands. He stumbled to his feet. He went to where the woman and girl were sitting and took hold of the woman by her wrists. Briefly she fought him, then complied, sliding off the ledge. Sullivan slapped her anyway. Backhanded across the face. Her head twisted and she stared at the girl, then she turned toward Sullivan again. Dead-eyed. Resigned. Sullivan smiled. He led her past the fire, pausing to collect his revolver, which he showed to the woman, then pushed inside his belt. He looked down at Tommy and Billy, asked them, “Don’t suppose either of you two wants a go on her when I’m done?”
Tommy felt himself flushing. A rush of panic and blood. Billy sat there blinking like he hadn’t even heard. Tommy couldn’t look at the woman, or at the girl. By now Rabbit had finished coiling the chains; he dumped them on the ground and nodded at Tommy. Tommy lurched to his feet and, for want of anything else to do, fetched fresh firewood from the pile.
“You’ve never done it before, have you?” Sullivan asked Billy.
“
It ain’t that.”
“What then? Don’t be scared, son. They’re all the same down below.”
Tommy threw the wood on the fire and sat down. A shower of sparks rose.
“I ain’t scared. It’s just—”
“Look, I’m not going to force you,” Sullivan told him. “But you do this and shoot that other black like he said and you’ll be a man by morning, simple as that. It’s up to you. But think on it too long and Locke’ll have killed both them cunts and Noone’s boys’ll have had their way with the gin, and she won’t be no good to you then.”
He shoved her out of camp, the opposite direction from that which Noone had taken the men, back toward where the horses were tethered and a shallow cave they’d passed coming in. The woman struggled briefly but soon relented, and the last Tommy saw of them was the revolver pinned to her spine and Sullivan’s hand clamped on her bare backside, the fingers pressed hard into the skin.
They were alone. Tommy and Billy, Rabbit and the girl, not one of them yet adult. Locke snored as he slept. The fresh wood crackled on the fire. Lightning flashed silently: no rain, no thunder, a white pulse in the darkness and that was all. Tommy watched it fading, the sky seeping to black, and noticed the girl watching it too. She was shivering. Rabbit sat beside her now, cross-legged beneath the ledge, studying his fingernails. Again the lightning flashed. A volley of laughter carried faintly along the canyon and all of them looked up.
“Them buggers get it now,” Rabbit said absently.
“Look at her shivering,” Tommy whispered, but his brother was elsewhere, scowling hard into the fire, cheeks drawn, chewing on his lip. “Billy—the girl. We should bring her over here.”
“What for?”
“She’s not got any clothes on. Be warmer by the fire.”
He looked at her. “She’s got a coat, hasn’t she? Why d’you even care?”
“You’re thinking on it, aren’t you? Doing what he said?”
Billy’s hind teeth clenched. He wouldn’t meet Tommy’s eye.
“Have you not got a mind of your own? There’s him with a wife at home and look how he carries on—that’s how you want to be?”
“You don’t know nothing about it.”
“What would Daddy say? Or Ma? Bad enough we’re even out here but—”
“Daddy wouldn’t say a bloody thing,” Billy snapped. “He was weak, Tommy; it’s time you saw him for what he was. He spent his whole life with his back turned and his head down, and look what he became. Poor and half-starved and dead on his own front porch. I don’t aim to end up the same.”
“You’re a fucking mongrel. Here,” Tommy called to the girl, “come and get warm.”
“I said no.”
“I ain’t asking.”
Tommy waved the girl forward. Her big eyes watched him but she stayed where she was. First Tommy stood, then Billy, blocking his path.
“Reckon you’re the boss now?” Tommy said.
“I’d say so. My little brother plus two blacks puts me in charge of camp.”
“You ain’t the boss of me. Or him even.” Tommy pointed at Rabbit, still sitting on the ground with his long legs crossed. “She’s not but Mary’s age, Billy. Look at her shivering. What harm would it do?”
Billy glanced between them, then threw up his hands. “Ah, fuck it. Do what you want and answer for it. I’m not stopping around.”
He went to leave but Tommy grabbed him. “Don’t. Not that.”
“Not what? I’m checking on the horses, if that’s alright by you.”
“You’re checking on the horses?”
“Aye, the horses.” He shook off Tommy’s grip but wouldn’t look at him.
“You’re not going to find them? Sullivan?”
“I just told you, didn’t I?”
“It ain’t right. Being with a woman like that.”
“What would you know about being with a woman?”
“I know it ain’t right that way. I know that much.”
“Well, what I know is I can’t stand listening to you whining like a bloody pup anymore. It’s time you grew up, Tommy. See things for what they are. Glendale’s gone. Ma, Daddy, Mary—all of them are gone. So now we have to choose. Either we roll over like he did or face the world front on, bollocks first, like men.”
There was a silence. Tommy said quietly, “That Sullivan’s speech or yours?”
Billy didn’t answer. He shrugged past his brother and marched along the ravine, and for a while Tommy stood watching helplessly, then hung his head and looked at the others again. Rabbit on his feet now, guarding the girl.
“Just . . . come over here. Both of you.”
“Watch girl, Marmy says.”
The word was lost on him. He had never heard the troopers call Noone by that name before. “You can still sit with her,” Tommy said. “But he already gave her his coat—he won’t be happy if she’s cold.”
Rabbit stood thinking, then pulled the girl roughly from the ledge. The coat slid from her shoulders and her nakedness was all the more shocking to Tommy for having been so long concealed.
“Cover her,” he said, averting his eyes. “Bring the bloody coat.”
They seated themselves self-consciously around the fire—Tommy opposite the girl, Rabbit between them—and for a while said nothing at all. Rabbit held his hands to the flames and the girl let go three great shivers as the warmth worked its way to her bones. Tommy watched her furtively. Watched the flames cast their shadows on her cheeks. He had not been so close to her before and wondered if he’d misjudged her age. There was a sadness in her face that made her seem much older than eleven. Older than himself, even. Or maybe she was only scared.
“Tell her . . .” Tommy said, then faltered. “Tell her that she’s safe, that we won’t do what they’re doing to her friend.”
Rabbit smiled at him conspiratorially, like this was some kind of ruse.
“I mean it. Can you tell her that? Please.”
As the trooper spoke, the girl stared blankly into the flames.
“Did she hear you? Did you say what I said?”
“Is different words. Not all blackfella talk same.”
“So she doesn’t understand you?”
Rabbit shrugged. They sat in silence again. Another lightning flash.
“They said you were from New South Wales?” Tommy asked.
Rabbit nodded, said a word Tommy didn’t catch. Sounded like a jury.
“What is that? A town?”
“Is people. Not much that mob left no more. Them all gone bung.”
Tommy looked down at his hands. He could hear raised voices and a distant slapping sound, no telling from which direction it came.
“They killed my family too. What happened to yours?”
“Was long time ago. Small Rabbit then.” His face was set, the expression severe, talking into the flames. “Plenty blackfella before Rabbit born, now is small mob blackfella, big mob whitefella. We is running, running, hiding, hiding. Then one whitefella come looking, says good job here Queensland, join up whitefella mob. Is better in big mob, I reckon. I says yes.”
“You . . . chose to be here? Why?”
“Here tucker, shillings, woman, grog. Learn whitefella ways. Show them other black buggers who boss here now.”
“By hunting your own people?”
Rabbit shrugged. “Them not own people. And is law, Marmy says.”
“Don’t you . . . I mean, don’t you want to go home?”
He said it sadly, quietly: “Is no more home.”
Tommy stared into the fire. He had assumed the troopers must have been press-ganged into service, not here of their own free will. If it could be called free will. Your family all dead and nowhere to turn, so you side with the enemy to get by. He could understand how that felt. Maybe not wholly, but he had an idea.
The girl had been watching them talk. Listening, it seemed. Tommy nodded at her. “What’s her name?” he asked Rabbit. Then to the girl: “What’s your
name?”
She looked uncertainly at each of them. Tommy pointed to himself and gave his name, then to Rabbit and gave his, then extended his finger toward her.
“Kala,” she said in a low voice. She tapped her chest and repeated it: “Kala.”
“Kala,” Tommy echoed. “Are you thirsty? You want water?”
He mimicked drinking, the girl nodded. Tommy sprang to his feet and hunted out his flask. Not full or fresh still, but he gave her what he had. She sniffed the open neck, tested it, then gulped the contents down.
“There’s not much to eat, neither,” Tommy was saying, casting about the camp for food. He found only a piece of damper crust and a stale hunk of roo; the girl refused the roo but held the bread in her bound hands and nibbled at its end.
“I know—just a minute, wait here.”
He went to where his bedroll and saddlebag were piled against the canyon wall, and from the bag retrieved the packet of lemon sweets. There were roughly half a dozen left. He took out three, replaced the packet in the bag, then squatted between Rabbit and the girl—Kala, he reminded himself, Kala is her name.
“Here, take one. You suck them. They’re good.”
Rabbit snatched a lolly and tossed it into his mouth. His eyes flared and he grinned. Tommy waited with his hand outstretched. Kala reached out hesitantly and twisted one hand over the other, pivoting her wrists. She picked up the lolly and examined it, sniffed it, touched it with her tongue. Tommy nodded her on. She watched him very carefully, her eyes searching his, and when she slid the little lolly into her mouth and faintly smiled, the intimacy sent a tingle right through him. He crawled back to his place at the fireside and in the warmth and the silence the three of them sat together, contentedly sucking on their sweets, as the lightning crackled above them and the echoes of grunting and whip cracks came whispering through the ravine.
* * *
In the night he heard her crying. Kala. A soft and high-pitched whimpering beyond the coughs and snores. Tommy lifted his head and searched the shapes and shadows, the dark lumps of bodies curled on the bare ground. The fire was down. A deep charcoal glow but little light to see. He waited for his vision to come. Listening to Kala’s muffled sobs. He made out Billy and Sullivan, Locke and Rabbit, Jarrah, Mallee, and maybe Pope. And then there she was, lying near the wall, on her back with her bound hands covering her face and the longcoat spread open at her sides. Noone lay beside her. He was raised on his elbow, cradling his head in his hand. Talking to her. Whispering. A dreadful low hum. He lifted his eyes—chalk-white in the darkness—to look directly at Tommy but did not stop talking to the girl. There was movement. Noone’s other hand. It crawled pale and spiderlike over her skin. Tommy lowered himself back down. He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. Noone hushed the girl but she would not stop crying.