Only Killers and Thieves

by Paul Howarth

  When they were finished Noone placed the carafe on the floor and stood regarding the two brothers for a very long time.

  “She’s right, of course. Mrs. Sullivan. Whites can be so complicated to kill. Too many questions are asked, too much of a fuss made. Hence our current predicament: how to explain tonight’s events. Of course, we can always blame the natives, there must be one about. The houseboy, perhaps. He with the downcast face.”

  “No,” Tommy said. “Not him. I’ll stand for what I did.”

  “How very noble of you, Tommy. But you’re a fool to trade your life. Besides, as I have already told you, I cannot allow your testimony to be compromised, and so”—Noone nodded sharply, as if the solution had just crystallized in his mind—“here is my proposal. It is the only one I will make. Reject it and I’ll shoot the pair of you right here where you stand.”

  He peered down at each of them. Neither could hold the stare.

  “Tommy will leave the district. This very night. Ride south and never return. Billy will remain behind. Ordinarily I’d banish the pair of you, but this way I’ll have a surety: each brother the other’s keeper, as the good book says. If either of you talks, if Billy leaves, or Tommy returns, if there’s so much as a letter in the mail, I will kill the both of you and your families and anyone else you hold dear. There will be no warning. One day you will simply look upon my face and know what the other has done. Do you understand?”

  Both nodded, their eyes still downturned. Noone took Tommy’s rifle from him and inspected the weapon disdainfully, like he knew not what it was. He gestured to the entrance hallway, the front door. Tommy turned to Billy but Billy’s eyes were on the floorboards and he wouldn’t look up, scowling like he was still trying to fathom what had just occurred. Tommy pitied him. His brother was a fool. He’d taken Sullivan at his word despite knowing his word was false. Greed and pride had got him, had been in him his whole life. Now he stared dumbly at the floor and Tommy knew he was only thinking about himself, about how he’d get by once Sullivan died. Not their own family or the Kurrong or all else they had done. He probably blamed Tommy for ruining things; despite everything, he still wouldn’t consider it justified.

  Billy came at him and Tommy flinched, then stood stiffly in his brother’s embrace. Billy’s arms were wrapped around him, his cheek against Tommy’s cheek, holding him so tightly he couldn’t fill a breath. Slowly Tommy melted. His hands crept up Billy’s back. He stretched onto his toes to match his brother’s height and was struck by the thickness of him, like holding Father in his arms, must have been years since the two of them had hugged. He felt his eyes filling. Billy whispered in Tommy’s ear but his mouth was too close to make out what he said. The meaning was clear enough. He was saying a final good-bye. Tommy turned his head onto Billy’s shoulder, then Billy gave him a sudden squeeze, loosened his grip, pressed his lips against Tommy’s cheek, kissed him roughly, and was gone. He didn’t look back once. Took two stairs with each stride, then ran around the landing and along to their bedroom. Tommy stood there sniffing, watching his brother go, crying in front of Noone but he cared little for what Noone thought of him now. Tommy hated him. The man had ruined his life. It crossed his mind that he should try and kill him also, but just the idea of it seemed impossible: Noone would never die.

  The parlor door clicked open. Tommy sniffed and dragged a hand over his face, then turned to see Mrs. Sullivan emerge from the room. She closed the door softly and walked to the staircase, paused, and looked at them, her face untroubled, calm.

  “He’ll be found in the morning, I expect. I’m going to bed now. Good night.”

  Noone inclined his head. “Good night, Mrs. Sullivan.”

  “Not anymore,” she said, her mouth ticking briefly in a smile. She climbed the first few stairs, then paused. “Mr. Noone, since you’re still here—I wonder if perhaps you’d attend to the formalities. The official explanations, a plausible chain of events, whatever you feel is best.”

  “We were just discussing that very thing. It is already in hand.”

  “You’ll be rewarded for your troubles, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Suicide, I was thinking.”

  “No, suicide is messy, and a dishonorable way to go. You wouldn’t welcome the taint. I think the best thing for all of us would be to find the man responsible for John’s murder, attempt to arrest him, then kill him when he resists.”

  Tommy looked at him, aghast. Mrs. Sullivan said, “You have someone in mind?”

  Noone surveyed the atrium, the staircase, the entire house.

  “Tell me, Mrs. Sullivan, where does Raymond Locke sleep these days?”

  37

  They came down the steps together, Noone’s longcoat flaring, Tommy struggling to keep pace at his side. Neither spoke. Tommy felt utterly defeated by the man. At the bottom of the stairs he ducked under the recess, then emerged with Beau and found Noone waiting. “Walk with me to the camp,” Noone said.

  “No.”

  “Indulge me. It’s a fine night for taking the air. After all that excitement I’d say we would both benefit. And I’m not really asking, Tommy.”

  Tommy took a breath, led Beau onto the track, and they set off down the hill. An easy pace, a gentle stroll. After a short distance Noone seemed to remember that he was carrying Tommy’s rifle; he tossed it into the darkness and it was lost among the scrub.

  “Quite the scalp you’ve just taken,” Noone said. “Shooting John Sullivan is not the same as shooting most other men.”

  “He’s not so different.”

  “You don’t think so? When word gets out there will be no little uproar.”

  “That’s only ’cause people don’t know what he is.”

  “People know exactly what he is,” Noone said, laughing. “Why do you think he’s so revered?”

  “Well, you never seemed too bothered by him. Didn’t even care he was dead.”

  “Oh, there are plenty more John Sullivans on the frontier, Tommy. And this one had run his course. With the Kurrong finished he’d have been no use to me, but what’s worse is I think the fool had a notion the two of us were friends. I’d have been obliged to him socially, called upon for petty favors. No—you have done me a service. I’m thankful the man’s gone.”

  They walked in silence awhile. Out of the glow cast by the house and into the dark no-man’s-land between there and the workers’ camp. Barely the light to see by, to pick out their next step, blindly crunching gravel underfoot. Noone a dark and formless shadow at Tommy’s side, such that his voice came from the darkness, as if the darkness itself spoke.

  “I suppose you consider my terms unfair? Forcing you to leave?”

  “I was planning on it anyway.”

  “Without your brother?”

  He sniffed. “Either way.”

  “And yet you are still angry with me? You hold me to blame?”

  “For what?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what you feel?”

  “I don’t feel nothing about you at all.”

  There was hesitation before Noone spoke again: “Of course, it’s only natural to be angry when you’ve been duped. Consider, though, that since those who have wronged you will both soon be dead, and I have allowed you and your brother to live, it’s really a rather satisfactory outcome from your point of view. About the best you could have hoped for, I would say. You should be pleased. There are plenty of positives to be found.”

  “What fucking positives?”

  “Come now, Tommy. You must broaden your mind. You have got away with murder tonight. There aren’t many men can say the same.”

  “You can. You lot do it all the bloody time.”

  “Ah, but that is different. We do not kill anyone: we disperse.”

  “Doesn’t matter what you call it.”

  “Of course it does! That is all these things ever come down to, is i
t not, a legal sleight of hand? What is murder? How is it defined? Who gets to decide? Every law, every custom, every rule by which we live is made up by someone, conjured from thin air, then written down and by some sort of magic enacted into law. It is so malleable, Tommy. It is so unfair. The biggest myth in the world is that the law applies equally to all men—well, no, actually the biggest myth in the world is that God exists, but then even that amounts to the same thing: a made-up story written down and taken as His holy law. It is all the same parlor trick. There is no such thing as right and wrong. The only question is the individual’s willingness to act. The rest is veneer, formality, perception . . . words.”

  “Course there’s a difference between right and wrong.”

  “I disagree.”

  “You would.”

  “I assure you I am not alone.”

  “So you don’t feel nothing about the things you’ve done?”

  “Guilt, regret, conscience—they’re redundant emotions, unnecessary after the fact. No, the decision must be taken beforehand: there is always an alternative path. We tell ourselves that we have no choice, when the very opposite is true: there is always another choice. Consider your own situation. You do not regret killing John, I assume, because you believe it was warranted, yet the dispersal of the Kurrong weighs heavily, I can tell. What is the difference? That you now know the Kurrong were not responsible for your family’s murder, but back then you thought they were? Really? I don’t believe there weren’t doubts, or that at some point before we rode in there you didn’t realize Joseph wasn’t our only aim. Yet you participated. You still chose to—”

  “You said if I didn’t you’d burn me against a tree.”

  “So there you have it. You were faced with a choice and you acted. There is too much hand-wringing in the world these days, when the truth is, no one ever really feels remorse. At night in their beds or on their knees to pray, they chunter about regret and feel at peace. It is a charade. If they truly regretted something—if you were truly remorseful about what you’ve done, you would fall to your knees and ask to be shot. Or else you’d ride into town and confess and insist on being hanged. But you won’t. No one ever does.”

  “I told MacIntyre what happened. He said we’d done nothing wrong.”

  “Well, quite. Because the law is on our side. What we did to the Kurrong was necessary, Tommy, and it’s happening all over this land. In Tasmania the natives have all but disappeared. The guilt is collective, the responsibility shared. In a hundred years no one will even remember what happened here and certainly no one will care. History is forgetting. Afterward we write the account, the account becomes truth, and we tell ourselves it has always been this way, that others were responsible, that there was nothing we could have done.”

  “They’re still dead,” Tommy said. “All those people. That doesn’t change.”

  Noone sighed. “As will you be one day, Tommy. As will I. So ask yourself, really, what fucking difference does any of this make?”

  The camp emerged from the darkness. A ramshackle warren of barns and slab huts, lit by a low fire and shrouded in thin smoke. Shadows of men crossing back and forth, the shouting and the laughter, the quarrels and the cheers. Locke was in there somewhere. Chewing, spitting, arguing, eating his final meal.

  They came to where the track forked, and paused.

  “What’ll you do to him?” Tommy asked. “Locke—what’ll you do?”

  Noone looked puzzled. “Kill him—what else?”

  “How, I mean? How’ll you do it?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose that depends on him.”

  “You won’t try and arrest him?”

  “No, Tommy. I won’t. What would be the use?”

  Tommy peered between the buildings, into the camp. Noone said, “If you want, you can come with me. I can’t allow you a weapon but you’re welcome to watch. I expect it will give us both some satisfaction. A mutual parting gift.”

  “You won’t let me do it? What if I gave you my word?”

  Noone inclined his head and considered him proudly. “Well now, look at you, Tommy. Look how much you’ve grown.”

  He tied Beau to a railing and followed Noone into camp, watched by men leaning in doorways or slouched on the bare ground. Some were armed, here and there a pistol sticking out of their belts or a knife hilt protruding from their boots. Noone strode on, oblivious; Tommy hurried along behind. Marching between the huts and into the very center of the camp, where a group of men sat around a fire. Tommy scanned their faces as he neared. Locke wasn’t with them but he saw the watchman, Jessop, drinking from a bottle with his lank side hair hanging over his face. It occurred to Tommy that they might kill him also, and maybe Weeks if he was around, anyone who’d been involved, and nothing about that impulse felt wrong.

  “Yeah? Fuck d’you want?” one of the stockmen asked.

  “Good evening, gentlemen. I am looking for Raymond Locke.”

  There was a titter of laughter when Noone spoke.

  “Who’s asking?” the same stockman replied.

  “Noone.”

  A tremor went through them. All eyes on the ground. The stockman swallowed nervously, then pointed at a candlelit slab hut across the little yard. “He’s sleeping,” he said.

  “Excellent.”

  “He done something, like?” another man asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Noone said, turning a smile upon the group. “Indeed he has. Seems he and Mr. Sullivan had a disagreement earlier tonight. Locke was demanding more pay. For himself, you understand. John wouldn’t give it, wouldn’t cut all your wages to benefit just one man. Well, Locke wasn’t happy. He considered himself a special case. He threatened John—as you will know, Locke just loves his threats—but John is not a man easily moved. Locke shot him. Shot him sitting in his chair. So unfortunately, gentlemen, thanks to your own headman, it seems you’re all probably soon to be out of work.”

  “Fucking hell.”

  “That stupid bald cunt.”

  “Kill the bastard for all I fucking care.”

  Chatter broke out between them. Noone left them talking around the fire. Tommy followed him across the empty yard. When he glanced back at the men they were all watching, some standing, though none had made a move to come.

  The hut was small. It had a railing and a narrow front deck and two windows either side of the door. Two rooms: one in darkness, the other flickering in candlelight. As they neared, Noone held out a hand in warning, then stepped quietly onto the decking and peered in through each window. He turned to Tommy and smiled. The smile was full and very wide. Noone nodded for Tommy to come closer, then he eased open the front door. Through the gap Tommy saw into the lit room, the soles of Locke’s boots and his legs splayed apart on the bed. He was sleeping. Noone opened the door fully and rested it against the wall. Tommy stepped onto the porch behind him. A clear view of Locke now, slumped sideways, his piebald head hanging, his mouth open, his breathing thick and loud. Noone stood there appraising him. He drew his bowie knife slowly from his belt, then walked into the room. At the sound of him coming, Locke stirred. His eyes flickered, then snapped open and he jerked himself awake. Too late. Noone was upon him. He thrust the knife hilt-deep into Locke’s side. Locke gasped and sat upright, an endless intake of air. “Hello, monkey man,” Noone said, then he withdrew the knife and Locke collapsed back onto the bed. He lay there panting. His hand groped for Noone’s face. Noone took his wrist and wiped his blade clean on Locke’s sleeve. Locke watched the knife wide-eyed, blood pumping from his side.

  “If you have questions, you should ask them. I doubt he’ll last very long.”

  Tommy came forward, into the room, inching to the bedside. Locke’s eyes rolled toward him. “Fuck,” the overseer was slurring. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “Who was it?” Tommy said. “You or Sullivan? Who killed them?”

  Locke frowned at Tommy like he could hardly see him there.

  “You went to the house to kill t
hem, you bastard. You had—”

  “No,” Locke said. “Talk. Come out . . . carbine . . . full of grog.”

  “Who shot him? You?”

  Locke shook his head. “John.”

  “And you just fucking stood there.”

  “I only . . . I only did the dogs.”

  Noone erupted in laughter. “You and your dogs, Raymond!”

  “John give back the revolver, said one ball left but . . . had to use me sword.”

  “So there you have it,” Noone said, speaking to Tommy but staring at Locke. “The great McBride mystery has finally been solved, though I think you already knew. So long, then, Tommy. It’s time for you to go now. Raymond and I are going to have a little fun before he takes his final leave.”

  Tommy didn’t move. Locke gazed at him desperately. Noone perched on the side of the bed and muttered, “On you go, Tommy. Remember our terms.”

  Locke blinked slowly and looked away. Hopeless. Resigned. Tommy turned and left the room. He paused in the front doorway and saw Noone hunched over Locke’s body, toying with the knife in his hand. He was talking to him gently, as if comforting an old friend. Locke groaned pitifully. Tommy came out of the hut and set off walking across the yard, toward the men still gathered around the fire. Locke screamed. Tommy stalled and the watching men flinched and one cupped his mouth with his hand. Tommy walked on. He rounded the campfire and felt the men’s stares as he passed, until Locke screamed again and they recoiled and averted their eyes.

  A peculiar agony in the sounds he was making. A peculiar kind of pain.

  * * *

  In the scant moonlight Tommy followed the trail through the trees and the clearing with the watchman’s hut. Retracing the path he and Billy once took, Mary strapped bleeding to his front. Now he rode alone through the same bush and across the barren wasteland that led to the boundary trees, picking his way carefully between the boulders and termite mounds and unconsciously searching for the pair of Moses bushes in which he and his brother had hidden. Anything to hold on to. Anything that was real. His memories of his family were all he carried with him, but the memories felt as flimsy as dreams. He was hollow. Hollow and bereft. As Beau struggled to keep his footing on the shingle and scree, Tommy imagined him falling and pinning him to the ground, imagined the two of them lying out here wounded until it was time. Like that woman from Bewley who’d been found half-eaten—a bad death, Ma had said. Tommy would have taken that. He would have taken a bad death now. It seemed all the same to him. Bad life, bad death—was there any difference between the two? What lay before him was no kind of life, running from Noone for the rest of his days. He was heading for Glendale because there was nowhere else he knew, but then what? Where did he go at sunup? If he didn’t leave, he and Billy were dead; Tommy didn’t doubt Noone would keep his word. He was oddly principled in that way. Locke had had it coming since that first night in the scrubs, when he’d threatened Noone with a gun. Now look at him. Look at how he’d screamed.