by Peter Watt
Mondo slapped at young Peter’s hand as he snatched greedily at the flat bread damper in the hot ashes. Peter was the elder of the two boys. He was dark like his mother but he had his father’s grey eyes. At five years of age, he was already learning the ways of the bush from Mondo and Wallarie. From his father, he had become relatively fluent in the English language. Tim, at four years of age, was lighter in colour than his older brother and it was evident that he would take after his father in appearance, except that his eyes were brown like Mondo’s. And finally there was Sarah. Just over two years old, she had the lightest colouring of the three children. She was chubby and a spoiled favourite of her father.
‘Hot!’ Mondo said to her greedy son in English, but he had already learnt the lesson. He sucked at his fingers and glared at the damper while his father laughed at his son’s discomfort.
‘That will teach you, boy,’ he said as he ruffled his elder son’s curly mop of dark hair.
Mondo smiled as she watched her man give the boy a couple of playful punches. Tom was a good man! And she was grateful that he had turned out to be a provider for his growing family. There would be a fourth child, as was evident from the swelling of her belly. To provide was all-important and a good hunter made the difference of whether a man’s sons would grow strong like their father and be able to provide for their generations of families. Although her children had at first looked strange to Mondo, she had long forgotten the physical differences with her own people. She knew that, whatever they were – white or Darambal – they would grow strong.
Little Sarah sucked her thumb with one chubby arm on her mother’s shoulders as Mondo sat by the fire baking the damper. They also had the delicious sweet jam that Tom had taken in a raid on a property and tea that Mondo had acquired a taste for. She was very content during the time the Rainbow Serpent was away from His lagoon. It was a time when Tom and Wallarie stayed close to their hills. A time when game was plentiful, which left the two men time to sit cross-legged and talk for hours in a smatter of English and Nerambura dialect around the camp fire. They were as close as brothers and Mondo knew this was good because, between the two men, they were able to use the best of their skills – black and white – to stay ahead of the troopers.
The storm rolled around them and the echoes of thunder bounced off the cliff faces of the ancient hills. The big bearded bushranger was laughing and keeping young Peter playfully at an arm’s length as he tried to grapple with his father. Tom glanced across the fire and saw his wife staring at him with the strangest of expressions. Her big dark eyes were opened wide and she had an odd look that gave her an expression of wonder and bewilderment. He could see that she was trying to tell him something, then blood erupted from her mouth as she pitched forward into the fire.
Tom snatched Peter under his arm as the child stood stunned, staring down at his mother lying face down in the camp fire. He had not heard the killing shot of the police carbine as it had been muffled by the thunder. His father’s reactions were fast. He flung the boy on the ground, knocking the air from the child’s lungs.
‘Wallarie!’ Tom screamed as he made a leap to push Sarah away from the body of her dead mother. The little girl stood with her thumb in her mouth, staring wide-eyed at the body on the fire. She could not understand why her mother’s head was in the flames. Her mother had always told her that fire was hot. Tim saw his father push Sarah away from the light of the fire and knew that something was terribly wrong. The little boy stood and bawled with fear until Wallarie scooped him up and dropped him behind a rock.
Tom spun and hurled himself across the open space to the body of his wife where he reached with a frantic effort for her ankles to drag her from the fire. But a vicious volley of shots rang out, sending spurts of wet earth to spatter his face and pluck at his boot, wrenching his ankle painfully sideways.
Illuminated by the light from the camp fire, he knew he was the perfect target for the marksman hidden in the rocks below. Tom was not even aware that he was screaming his frustration. He made a last desperate tug at Mondo’s ankles and fell back, feeling the sting of a grazing shot across his hand.
‘Leave the woman!’ Wallarie screamed as he slithered across the clearing around the fire and slammed into Tom. ‘Leave her now! She is dead!’
Tom felt Wallarie grasp his hair and shake him savagely. He realised that his friend was risking his own life by exposing himself in the clearing beside him. He cast Wallarie an imploring look but only received an answering plea in the warrior’s smoky eyes. Death had already come to Mondo. The fire could do no more to her.
A bullet exploded a spout of earth between them only inches from both men’s faces. Tom rolled away from the fire while Wallarie slid across the clearing to the protection of the rocks and the Snider rifles that were close at hand. As well as the Sniders, both men usually carried three Colts each. But now they were some feet away, wrapped in blankets to keep them dry.
The crash of rifles echoed in the hills and the whine of ricocheting bullets left shattered fragments of rock showering down on the two men and the three children, who could smell the pungent aroma of burning flesh as the red-hot coals of the fire cooked away Mondo’s face.
Peter watched horrified from behind the protection of the rocks as his mother’s upper body began to sizzle. He wanted to scream at her to get out of the fire because it was hot. But no words came to him and instead, he shut his eyes as tightly as possible to make the sight of his dead mother’s body go away. He could hear his father screaming at him to stay behind the rocks and keep Sarah and Tim safe. And he could feel Sarah and Tim clinging to him like the koala or possum young clung to their mothers.
On the slope in cover of the rocks, Lieutenant Uhr roared angrily at the trooper who had fired the shot that killed Mondo. ‘You bloody stupid man. I said no shooting unless fired on.’
The trooper grinned sheepishly back at his boss. ‘Me tink Duffy see me, boss. Me shoot. But miss Duffy. Gettim his gin,’ came the reply from the trooper and Uhr cursed him to hell. He had hoped to use the storm and the gathering night to get closer and take both Duffy and the Aboriginal by surprise . . . and alive. Now the patrol was committed to a pitched battle in the rocks and the police officer did not underestimate his opponents. They had not stayed ahead of the best of the Native Police for so long without reason.
The two shots that came from the hill were uncomfortably close to Uhr and the trooper whom he’d chastised for firing without orders. The well-aimed shots told him that the men on the hill had not panicked. They were carefully selecting their targets. It was going to be a long night.
Tom flipped open the breech of the Snider and slipped a cartridge into the chamber of the rifle. He closed the breech and pulled back the hammer. The weapon had the advantage of range to keep the police at bay while Wallarie crawled across the space to where the revolvers were wrapped in a blanket and then crawled back with them to Tom. Now they had the means to deliver a rapid fire on any foolishly attempted rush by the police troopers. Neither bushranger had any intention of being taken alive.
The Irishman glanced across at the rocks a few feet away where his children were huddled. He hissed at Peter to make sure that he kept his brother and sister with him, safe between two rocks, while he and Wallarie lay on their bellies with their rifles tucked into their shoulders.
When they had fired, they would crawl away to take up a new position and their shots were always answered with a volley from down the slope. Some of the stray police rounds plucked at Mondo’s smouldering body and the impact of the heavy rounds caused her to jerk as if she were still alive.
Peter saw the body twitch with each impacting round and wondered why his mother refused to get up and get out of the fire. Her death was a concept the young boy could not come to grips with, even though he knew of death. He had helped his father and Wallarie hunt and he had hunted for lizards and small game by himself. But the idea that his mother could be dead was beyond the boy’s thinking.
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During a lull in the shooting, Uhr had called on the bushrangers to surrender in the Queen’s name. He received a chip of shattered rock in his face for his effort. He realised that by speaking he had identified his position to the men above him and Tom’s next round almost found its mark. He crouched as the bullet whined away into the night and guessed that surrender was out of the question for the bushranger. Wisely, he did not attempt to call on him again.
Slowly – and very cautiously – the police troopers advanced up the hill in a leapfrogging manoeuvre as they gave each other covering fire while dodging from position to position behind the cover of the rocky slope. Each stop was just a little closer to the summit where Tom and Wallarie held them at bay.
Tom knew it was only a matter of time before the troopers would be in a position to either rush them or pin them down, without any hope of escape. So far all the firing had come from their front. He suspected there might be another party of police quietly flanking their position while they were engaged by the troopers who fired on them from below. It was the thought of the flanking tactic that worried Tom most. If it was successful, then they would be surely trapped, cut off from escape on the other side of the hill.
‘Wallarie,’ he called softly to his friend a few feet away, ‘I want you to take the children and head down the hill behind us while I will lay on as much fire as I can and you make the break for the plains. I will keep the traps occupied here.’ Tom had spoken in the Nerambura dialect in case there were troopers within hearing.
‘No, Tom,’ Wallarie hissed back over the space between them. ‘They are your children and you must take them. I will stay for a while and fire at the black crows, because I am better than you at getting away on my own.’
He knew Wallarie was right and he reached out to pat his friend on the shoulder. Wallarie was naked and he was naturally camouflaged by the night. Tom’s European clothes made it harder for him to move unseen in the darkness.
‘I will go when I tell you I am ready,’ Tom whispered. There was no time to argue as both men had heard the sound of a small avalanche of rocks from only a few yards out, where one of the advancing troopers had carelessly dislodged them.
Tom crawled on his belly to his children and gave them short instructions on what to do. He scooped up his little daughter with one arm and held his rifle in the other hand. ‘Going now!’ he called softly to Wallarie in the Nerambura language. Immediately Wallarie used two of his pistols to blast away at the unseen troopers lower down on the rocky slope. When the guns were empty he rolled away from his position and fired his third pistol into the dark. The troopers instinctively kept their heads down as the bullets cracked and whined around the slope.
And it was while Wallarie was blasting away with the pistols that Tom made his break. The heavy rain may have provided concealment for the troopers, but it was a dual-edged weapon. The troopers did not know that the voice that chatted in a conversational tone on the hill was engaged in a monologue.
Wallarie kept up the one-sided conversation as he expertly reloaded his revolvers. He knew that while he held the summit, the troopers dared not expose themselves to his deadly, rapid fire. But he also knew the delaying tactic could not work forever. A bluff was a bluff in any man’s language.
FORTY-NINE
Kate’s every instinct screamed. She was in dire peril for her life and lay in her bed praying that the silence of the crickets would end. She needed to once again hear their reassuring chirping in the night and know she was alone. She was not able to explain why the feeling of dread had come on her, except that something was not right. Had Luke taught her too well . . . to listen even when she was asleep?
There was an uncanny silence outside her house and she thought she had heard the dull thud of heavy footsteps on the wood plank verandah. Dear God, let it be her imagination, she prayed. As she pulled the sheet up to her chin, she remembered the little pepperbox pistol Judith had given her as a gift for her journey west with the American. Where did she leave it? Yes, in a drawer beside the bed.
Kate eased herself up and placed her feet gently on the floor. But the bedsprings squeaked with the loudness of a steam train braking to an emergency halt, and she gritted her teeth in a futile gesture to make the noise go away. Then she heard the distinctive and sinister sound of a rusty hinge as the front door to the house was slowly pushed open. Could it be Hugh come to surprise her with a visit? But her instincts echoed a hollow no!
Very carefully she slid the drawer open in the small wooden bedside table and fumbled for the pistol. She was rewarded with the feel of its solid frame at her fingertips. She gripped the compact multi-barrelled pistol in her hand and placed the gun on the bed as she reached for a kerosene lantern and fumbled for a wax match from a tin. But the unlit match fell from her hand as the door to the bedroom crashed open and the dark room was filled with the odour of whisky and sweat.
Kate’s cry was stifled by the voice that snarled from the doorway.
‘Don’t scream, Missus O’Keefe.’
She flung herself on the mattress to crouch against the brass bedhead with her legs tucked under her long nightdress and she groped for the pistol jammed uncomfortably beneath her.
‘I’m not come here to hurt you,’ the voice said with a drunken slur. ‘Just to warn you that you will never get Glen View while I’m alive. Or even after I’m dead.’
Kate was acutely aware of who the unseen and threatening intruder was.
‘Mister Macintosh,’ she hissed through clenched teeth. She had recognised the Scottish squatter’s voice despite all the years that had passed since he had last confronted her on Glen View. Luke had protected her then. But Luke was not with her now. She realised with rising terror that she was alone facing the man whom she knew in her heart had been responsible for the murder of her father and the deaths of so many innocent men, women and children of the Darambal people.
‘Sir Donald to you, lassie,’ he growled. ‘Only my betters call me by my old title. And you aren’t one of them by any long shot.’
Kate could vaguely make out the squatter sliding down her wall to sit on the floor beside the bedroom door. She considered fleeing but cautiously decided that attempting to dodge past the burly man might put her in greater danger. Instead she fought to keep down her panic and play for time. She had another option, and that was to fight. Slowly Kate eased her hand down to the pistol under her hip.
‘What do you want here, Sir Donald?’ she asked and tried to sound calm, although her heart pounded uncontrollably like a hammer in her breast. ‘Why have you come to my house uninvited at this time of the night?’
The squatter snorted at her question.
‘I’ve just come to tell you that I’m on my way south for my younger son’s memorial service,’ he replied. ‘And that I know about your very foolish attempt to buy up my lease. Well, I’ve got news for you, lassie, and that is: it’s not going to happen, because I’ve just got a loan to refinance Glen View.’
‘Now that you have told me what you said you came to do, you can leave my house,’ Kate said in a firm and unwavering voice. She was answered by a menacing chuckle from the squatter sitting in the dark.
‘I’ll go when I’m ready,’ he said, ‘and not when you tell me. I want you to know some things about your family . . . and mine . . . Missus O’Keefe.’
‘What things, Sir Donald?’ she asked and heard him sigh heavily before he answered.
‘Things like the fact that there is a curse on us, Missus O’Keefe. On us. And you. Oh yes, a curse that has taken two of my sons and has taken your brother. Damned if I can think of his name.’
‘Michael,’ Kate whispered. And his name was picked up by the man who sat across the room from her.
‘Michael. Yes, Michael Duffy. It seems the bloody curse has taken my two sons, and if it all goes to course, then it will take one of your family next. Maybe your murdering bushranging brother. The Native Mounted Police will get him sooner or later.’
Kate flared and spat back angrily, ‘They will never catch Tom to hang him,’ she said. ‘He is a Duffy. He is like my father whom your English soldiers hunted in Ireland and tried to murder at the Eureka Stockade. He stayed alive, despite their best efforts.’
‘Until he came to Glen View,’ Donald cut across her savagely. ‘Where he was foolish enough to try to step between me and the murdering black bastard who killed my elder son. And he paid with his worthless life for doing so.’
Kate listened with cold hatred to the next best thing to a confession of guilt from the squatter and she wrapped her hand around the butt of the pepperbox pistol as her finger curled on the trigger. Fear and rage came together as a deadly combination.
‘You killed my father, you bastard!’ she hissed in the dark with a cold and calculating fury.
Donald laughed softly.
‘I never said that, lassie,’ he replied. ‘And I wouldn’t be putting it around that I did if I were you, either. We have laws about such things in the colonies. No, I can say with all honesty, I didn’t kill your father. Let us say that I agreed with what did happen to him in the end.’
Kate raised the pistol.
‘I am going to kill you, Sir Donald,’ she said calmly. ‘I have a pistol and it’s aimed at you.’
‘Then shoot, lassie,’ Donald said softly. ‘You could do no worse to me. It is possible that both you and I are the intended sacrifices to the myall curse because, if you kill me, you will also surely hang and dance with me in hell. Go ahead and shoot. Let me join my sons. Or are the Duffys only capable of bushwhacking their victims?’
He laughed and laughed until the laughter became almost a sobbing cry, while Kate fought to keep calm. She knew the squatter was taunting her. She would remain calm, because she wanted the man to suffer for a lot longer yet. Until she found a way of hurting him.
A dead man feels no more pain and she wanted him to be alive to feel the pain she would eventually bring him in a way that he would know had come from her. The death of his second son was his pain now. Even she could not make it worse and if she did kill him, she knew that would be an act of mercy. She suddenly felt a feeling akin to sympathy for the man whom she could sense was hurting as much as any human could. But regardless of her unspoken acknowledgement for his grief, she knew he was responsible for much suffering to her own family and for that he would eventually have to account.