Haunted Creek

by Ann Cliff

  They sat quiet for a while and Rose wondered why the soil here was different from English soil. Tom hadn’t finished. ‘Especially,’ he added, ‘we shouldn’t farm the steep slopes, they shouldn’t be cleared. They’ll wash away in winter. River flat’s a different matter, but even there we should be more careful. And we shouldn’t drain the swamps; it’ll change the river systems if we do. Swamps soak up the flood water, see.’

  Maybe this was what Erik had meant about the land needing careful handling. Rose decided she would watch their soil carefully to see what happened when the trees were felled.

  ‘Oh Lord! Maybe we should go back to England right away,’ Luke scoffed. ‘I believe that when you pay good money for land, it’s yours. You can do what you jolly well like with it.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late. Settlers are here now and they think like you do.’ Tom relit his pipe and took a few puffs. ‘But kangaroos and wallabies with their soft feet, they don’t cut up the land. I reckon we should be farming them, myself. Kangaroos, anyway, for meat and hides. And maybe growing trees to sell for timber, export it even. But that will have to wait until railways come up here to move it….’

  Tom Appleyard was evidently well into his favourite theme, but his wife came to take Rose’s mug and whispered, ‘Would you like to see the house?’

  ‘Yes, please!’ Here in the bush, it was even more fascinating to see how people had their living arrangements. The Jensens’ house was neat and spotlessly clean but some of the small cabins down by the creek had a tumbledown look. And now, a tree house … Rose was amazed at how much room there could be inside a tree.

  The forest giant must have been hundreds of years old; it would have been here before Captain Cook landed in Australia. The inside was hollow, but the outside seemed quite sound. ‘Is it dry?’ Rose had been battling with leaks for some time now.

  There were two rooms, a kitchen and a tiny bedroom on the ground floor and a rickety ladder led to the floor above. ‘That’s for storage, and where the bairn sleeps.’ In the centre of the kitchen was a large table made from the trunk of a tree, smooth and polished with use. The rest of the furniture was similar to Rose’s own, sparse and homemade. And yet instead of being ashamed of her home, Mrs Appleyard was proud of it. ‘Yes, dry, and right comfortable,’ the woman said happily. ‘I cook outside, of course. Before this, we lived in a tent. But Tom always promised me a tree house, and now we’ve got one.’ She looked at Rose with shy grey eyes in a rosy face, wanting to be friendly.

  ‘I like it,’ Rose said gently, realizing that her own kitchen was quite good enough for the present.

  As they walked home, mist began to rise from the creek and the trees were ghosts glimmering in a sea of silver. Luke shivered and lit the cooking fire, saying he felt cold, but Rose watched the moon rise, reflecting on the day. Was it true that farming would destroy the land? That was what the eucy men thought, too. The night was so beautiful that she could imagine the regret – men like Tom loved the bush, but they were destroying it. Erik realized the danger; he loved the land, too.

  There would be fields and fences all around here, very soon. Quietly she wandered down the well-worn little path to the creek, watching the mist twist and swirl. Her everyday world was transformed by mist and moonlight. Rose gave a start as she thought she saw darker shapes among the shadows under the trees. Several dark shapes, moving soundlessly … and then they were gone. Rose did not see them go but they were not there any more. Had she been dreaming?

  Luke wanted fried bacon for supper, so Rose set to work, still wondering what she had seen. ‘Are there any … natives about here?” she asked as the bacon sizzled in the pan.

  ‘Blackfellas? No, it’s too cold, they say. They stay down in the valley and by the ocean where there’s plenty of fish. No Aborigines here.’

  So what had she seen? A few dark shapes that could have been kangaroos, perhaps. Better forget about it. She wondered what the original people here thought about the white settlers. No doubt they felt the same as the eucy men – their world was disappearing as the land was cleared. They were bound to hate the settlers.

  Rose had almost forgotten about the shapes in the mist when they came back, one evening when Luke was away fishing with Jim Carlyle. She was at the creek in the twilight, enjoying the peace, when two dark figures came round the bend and stopped suddenly when they saw her. This time she was sure: they were real people. On impulse, she walked a few steps towards them with her hand outstretched.

  SEVEN

  AS ROSE MOVED forward slowly, the shapes retreated further into the misty woodland. They were slightly built females in cotton dresses and bare feet. The older one seemed to be wearing some kind of fur round her shoulders and they both carried bags. ‘Who are you?’ Rose asked, but the women shook their heads with a half smile and said a word she didn’t understand. The younger one carried a small baby bound up in her shawl. The other woman stooped and picked something up from the ground … then they were gone. They were so silent, so rapid, that it was hard to believe they’d been there at all.

  Was this where the name came from – Haunted Creek? Had the first gold miners seen dark shadows flitting by the water and thought they were ghosts? It was possible: most people she’d spoken to had told Rose that there were no native people here. It was empty country, waiting to be claimed, they said.

  Slowly, Rose walked over to where the women had been standing. She had noticed since the rains a fungus that was growing in the open forest where the trees gave a light shade, a whitish, flat fungus very unlike the mushrooms she was used to. ‘Probably poison,’ Luke had said, but now she could see that several of them had gone; the women had collected them.

  The dark mysterious figures had looked at her not as an enemy, but with a shy friendliness. Rose wondered whether they would get used to her presence so that she could talk to them. They must know so much about the plants that grew here, knowledge that was difficult to come by.

  The settlers seemed to take some interest in the animals and birds, but most of them saw the bush as hostile, something to be fought. The native growth was weeds, to be got rid of as quickly as possible to make room for useful plants. And yet in Yorkshire, Rose had gathered many ‘weeds’ with her grandmother, and used berries, flowers, leaves and roots for food and medicine.

  Rose had seen small red berries growing on low bushes near the hut and wondered whether they were good to eat, but nobody knew. ‘Don’t try them, they might kill you,’ Luke had warned her. ‘You’ve got to be careful in the bush, haven’t I told you? Don’t take risks where there’s no doctors. I don’t want to have to bury you in the orchard.’

  Sitting alone outside the hut, Rose stirred the fire and looked up at the stars above the trees. Perhaps they should get a dog; it was lonely once the goat had gone to bed. At home she had never sat outside at night; never thought of it because decent folk were indoors after dark. She sighed and put the billy on to boil, wondering when Luke would be home. Sometimes he stayed out all night when he was with Jim, but he usually brought back fish for the next meal. She was not afraid of sleeping alone, although if native women were close there was probably a whole group, including the men.

  That night Rose heard howling noises by the creek and her skin prickled, but she eventually fell asleep. Morning came quite soon and she made toast on the fire for breakfast; still no Luke. The next delivery of eggs was due at the All Nations and so she carefully arranged them in the basket. She fed and watered the animals and tried to move the cattle to another paddock, but the gate, which had no hinges and was lifted open and shut, was too heavy for her. Luke should have fitted it. She gathered some grass and threw it over the fence at them and the heifers ate it greedily. They should have been moved earlier; they were hungry and likely to cause trouble. She waited a while, expecting to hear his voice, but Luke had still not come home by the time she left.

  Maeve was pleased to see the eggs. ‘Come in, now, you must be ready for a cup of tea. How’s t
hings on the farm? No, don’t tell me, I know. Men are such—’ Maeve broke off and laughed. ‘I nearly said a rude word. You’re on your own again? I saw himself going down the creek with Jim and I bet he didn’t come back last night at all. They took some tucker from here with them.’ So Luke had called at the pub yesterday.

  ‘I saw some Aborigines by the creek,’ Rose told her, to change the subject. The memory of those slim dark figures haunted her. They were creatures from another world, but she could not imagine what their world would be like. They were closer to the earth than the settlers, that was certain.

  ‘What?’ Maeve’s eyes opened wide. ‘Blackfellas came round when you were on your own? They’re hardly ever seen hereabouts. But they can be dangerous, you know. Can you fire a gun?’

  Who would want to point a gun at such shy creatures? Rose shook her head. ‘Just two women … picking some kind of mushrooms, I think. They disappeared when they saw me.’

  ‘Just as well.’ Maeve talked as she poured the tea; they sat in the bar in case customers appeared. She explained that most of the neighbours were very wary of the native people, although they weren’t often seen this far inland. ‘Mostly they’re quiet, but you hear bad stories. And the drink – well, they can’t take it. Thank goodness they don’t come in here. Mind you, it could be said of some of our blokes!’ Another belly laugh; Maeve was in a jovial mood today. ‘A lot of miners would be better off without any liquor at all and healthier, although I say it myself that sells it to them.’ Sniffing the stale beer aroma of the bar, Rose agreed. This was yet another way of earning a living that could prick the conscience. ‘But you want to be careful.’

  The dark people lived mostly near the rivers and swamps, Maeve said, in the valleys where there was plenty of food. Generally they were called the Ganai nation, though there were different names for five separate groups. According to some, they could murder people in their beds when they got upset – which was why she was afraid for Rose.

  There was a mission further east, to convert the Aboriginal people to Christianity and persuade them into European ways. Maeve thought that this was a good thing. ‘Our food and medicine must be better than theirs, stands to reason,’ she said comfortably. ‘They’ll be better off, once they do as we do and settle down, stop wandering about.’

  Rose felt a little tug of sympathy now that she had seen the people for herself. For how many centuries had they lived as they did? They must know how to survive in what could be a very harsh world in the bush. Would they really prefer dry salt beef to fungus from the forest? You could hardly blame them for being unfriendly; they were here first.

  ‘That’s one of their possum skins, over on the wall yonder.’ Maeve pointed and Rose went over to the dark corner where the skin was tacked to a board. It felt very soft and warm. She realized that this was what the older native woman had been wearing. Next to the skin on the wall was a bag, woven from reeds or rushes by the look of it, rather like ones the gypsies made in England.

  The door opened with a bang and Luke strode in, carrying an enormous fish. ‘Hello, darling!’ he shouted to Maeve. ‘My special woman! Look what I’ve brought you this time! Give us a kiss, won’t you?’ He rushed round the bar at her.

  ‘Save the fish for your wife.’ Maeve twisted away from him, laughing. ‘Go home, Luke.’ Would she have done that if Rose had not been there? She looked splendid in red today and Rose felt herself to be colourless beside the big woman. How could she compete with such a large personality? But it wasn’t supposed to be a competition.

  ‘Nay, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.’ Jim appeared behind him and Luke glanced at his friend. ‘You won’t tell her, will you?’ He turned to Maeve again and Rose thought his face was flushed. ‘Here, sweetheart, let’s have a drink. I’ve been without seeing you for too long.’ He threw an arm round her shoulders and planted a smacking kiss on her cheek.

  Maeve hissed at him and flapped her hands, but Luke didn’t seem to care. It was too much to bear and Rose slipped out of a side door, leaving her basket behind. She wanted to get away from them all, to go home and forget what she had seen. So this was how her husband behaved when she wasn’t with him. Unless, which was even worse in a way, he had seen her and was doing it to annoy her.

  A little way along the track, Jim caught up with Rose. ‘Don’t you fret, honey,’ he said quietly. ‘Blokes talk to barmaids and pub women like that all the time – it means nothing. You’ll maybe not have been in many pubs, have you? It’s a sort of joke – we all pretend to make love to Maeve even though she is the owner and could buy and sell the lot of us. But we’re careful not to go too far, you know. She can fetch you a swipe round the ear that would fell an ox.’ His dark eyes were kind; Jim could tell how she was feeling.

  ‘Have you felt it, then? Thanks, Jim,’ Rose laughed, with an effort to sound normal. Perhaps he was right; she would ignore it. She rather hoped that Luke would get a box on the ear – it was just what he deserved. He’d been a cheeky child at school, but she had thought that he had grown out of it. ‘But maybe Maeve encourages the men, up to the point when she swipes them? Some women flirt a lot, I know, and I suppose Luke would fall for it.’

  ‘No, the only one Maeve really likes is a big chap they call Lordy.’ Jim went on, as if trying to divert her from the subject of Luke. ‘They say he’s a real live lord. Funny, isn’t it? And he’s very keen on her, but they don’t seem to make a go of it.’ Rose smiled; Lordy and Maeve were an unlikely couple.

  They walked on in silence until Jim said, ‘But you know, all the women here have plenty of choice – there’s scores of men looking for a wife. Tell that to Luke sometime, will you? A pretty girl like you would have no trouble finding a good man, if you weren’t too particular about being married to the one you were living with. Of course, a lot of folks don’t worry; it’s a bit different out here in the wilds.’ He paused. ‘But I expect you would have standards.’

  Rose blushed. ‘I know you’re trying to cheer me up, Jim, paying me compliments, but you’re right, I’m not likely to go off with anybody else.’ He had made her feel a little less rejected, less worthless.

  Jim stopped walking and looked at her. ‘Well, I think you’re a very good catch for Luke, you’re not easily scared and you’ll turn your hand to anything. A lot of women wouldn’t stay here on their own. He’d better look after you. Honest, Rose, I envy him. I won’t mention it again, but if ever you’re in trouble, you can depend on me.’ This was very serious talk from a man like Jim and a long way from his usual joking self. She thought that perhaps he meant what he said.

  ‘I hope I can keep out of trouble, Jim.’ The water in the creek was shining in the sun, the bush was fresh after the rain and trouble seemed very far off.

  After a few minutes Luke caught them up, carrying a fish in Rose’s basket. ‘She sent me home like a puppy dog,’ he grinned. ‘Fish for dinner, lass! As it happened, we had two, so Maeve got one. And Jim can join us.’ Perhaps that was to avoid being alone with Rose to face her anger, if he realized she had seen him with Maeve.

  As they neared home, six young cattle walked to meet them and stood in a group, waiting for something to happen. Luke said sourly, ‘My cattle! They must ha’ got out. Didn’t you move them, Rose? You should be more careful.’ It was evidently her fault that they had escaped from their badly fenced paddock. The only way Luke could keep them at home was to move them often on to fresh grass, but Rose was hoping the fences would soon be finished properly.

  Jim’s mouth tightened but all he said was, ‘Well, we’ll soon get them in, there’s three of us.’

  ‘I threw them some grass … the gate was too heavy to move,’ Rose explained. The animals seemed to want a game. They capered about, throwing their hind legs in the air and snorting and it took Luke, Jim and Rose half an hour to round them up again.

  When it was all over and the cattle were rather sulkily penned in a fresh paddock, Luke lit the cooking fire while Jim cleaned the fish, to Ros
e’s relief. She went to the hut to get some plates and found a bunch of roots on the step. They looked like pale young carrots to Rose. ‘Who could have left these?’ she wondered.

  Jim looked at the plants carefully. ‘These are yam daisy tubers, they grow round here. I’ve never tried them but the Ganai eat them, they say.’

  ‘Calling blackfellas by a big name?’ Luke scoffed. ‘Well, I don’t suppose they left them so it must have been Martha, or your friend Erik that’s so keen to help you. We’ll find out next time we see them.’

  The fish was good, cut into fillets and cooked over the fire, and they ate it with the yams, which were sweet and rather like carrots. Rose thought she would gather some for herself. Jim showed her where the small yellow flower grew and they seemed to be everywhere after the rain. She was sure that the shy women had left the plants for her. What could she give them in return? This little act of kindness eased the hurt of Luke’s indifference. She was sure now that he would never love her, but she would survive.

  When Jim had gone, Rose decided to ask Luke a question that had been in her mind for hours. ‘When you walked into the pub, did you see me there?’

  ‘Of course I did! I was carrying on with Maeve for a joke, just to see what you would say! But you’ve got no sense of humour, have you?’ Luke laughed. ‘Never mind, lass. It was all in fun. Don’t be so serious – you’re always worrying about something.’