by Ann Cliff
Leaving him in that peaceful spot with the breeze whispering through the trees, Rose felt slightly comforted. Luke was at rest, he was better there than being maimed by the terrible accident and living a life of pain and frustration.
On the way home they were all quiet and Rose was able to think with no distractions. What could she do to make it clear that she had not forgotten Luke, that she was not looking for another husband? Under the canopy of the tall trees it came to her: she would do what the Queen had done. Over fifteen years since Prince Albert’s death, the English papers reported that she still wore black.
Rose remembered she had some plain black cotton to make dresses and she could buy a black shawl. Wearing black would save any explanations; anyone who met her would know her situation straightaway. All the colour in her life would be saved for Ada. Now she understood why widows she had known in Kirkby had worn black. It was the perfect answer.
FIFTEEN
THERE WERE FEW sounds, just the soft lapping of water and the mewing call of wood ducks in the distance. The sky was enormous, a great bowl of blue with small white clouds moving slowly across it. From where he lay on a springy bed of dried grass, Erik idly watched the clouds.
After a while, or maybe after a day or so, he raised his head and now he could spot ducks among the reeds, black ducks and little teal, swimming and dabbling. A heron stood patiently on one leg, watching for fish. Dragonflies danced above the water, rising and falling with the breeze. Erik moved and his muscles protested. His whole body ached.
Where was he? Erik propped himself on one elbow and a black face appeared. Was he a prisoner? The Ganai had got him; this must be their camp. In his present state, there was nothing he could do about it.
‘You right now?’ The face looked anxious. ‘You been sick, we thought might die.’
‘Ah.’ Erik’s brain felt sluggish and he digested this for a while. He knew who he was … but there was something he should be doing. ‘What happened?’ That was the safest question. He might be a prisoner. The Ganai man looked friendly enough, but you heard some bad stories. Delving into his memory with difficulty, Erik had the feeling that the Ganai were his friends. There was a big sad face, back in the past….
‘You wait.’ The face disappeared and a woman brought water, which Erik drank feverishly. After a while she gave him a broth made of some kind of shellfish; it tasted good.
Gradually he felt more normal and Erik pieced together the facts of his situation. It would be so good to lie back on the grassy bed and sleep again, but he must think. Painfully he rearranged his aching limbs.
To begin with, he was on the Great Swamp. The three-chain road skirted this huge area of wetland, keeping clear of the water and the fogs. The swamp covered many miles of ground and Erik thought it stretched about half way to Melbourne, unless there was more than one swamp. He’d often watched the birds as he rode by, but white men rarely went into the swamp because of snakes and mosquitoes.
Where was home from here? It was afternoon, the sun was moving to the west. It would be too far to walk home; it was a few hours’ ride from the swamp to the foothills of the mountains.
How did he get here? He’d been riding, that was it, with a mob of cattle. With George and Sep, probably not far from here. They had been surprised in the night and – and then everything was blank. He remembered shouts, the bellowing of the herd. A huge steer with horns came out of the dark at him, crazed with fright … and nothing more.
The man came back and squatted beside him. ‘We talk now. I am Lewis.’
‘Erik is my name.’ They looked at each other and Erik sensed a great goodwill. ‘Thank you for looking after me.’
Lewis looked down and then said, ‘Very pleased you come good. Erik is a friend of Ganai – remember little Toby?’ He grinned.
The memory, that sad face, came back to Erik now. Little Toby, a huge man by Ganai standards but very gentle, had been in trouble some years ago, through no fault of his own. Erik had intervened as he was about to be locked up, having seen the brawl that caused the trouble.
Lewis was hard to follow, but Erik pieced together the story of what had happened to get him here. The Ganai group had heard the cattle stampede, so this camp must be quite near the road. They had naturally gone along to see whether there was any stray beef for them to pick up. It sometimes happened. Lewis had almost fallen over Erik as he lay unconscious by the side of the track. ‘If big thunder mail coach come by, you might be in little pieces now,’ he said seriously. It was true. Cobb & Co. drivers were perched up so high and went so fast that a body lying in the road would never be seen.
The hunters had picked up Erik and brought him back to their camp, not knowing who he was until one of the women said he’d helped Little Toby. ‘You are a very heavy man, Erik,’ Lewis told him.
‘You seem to know a lot, Lewis. What happened to the others – and where are the cattle now?” Erik rubbed his stiff limbs. It wasn’t often that cattle spooked badly once they had settled in for the night. He hoped the Ganai hadn’t disturbed them.
Lewis looked shocked. ‘You think we took them steers? Nah! It was white men, they took half the mob, went away fast in dark towards the sea.’ He pointed south. ‘Your mates got back the rest and then they look for you, Erik, think you gone home. One horse missing, see, we got it. Our Lenny heard them say horse was gone. The bugger’s gone home to his mammy and left it all to us, the old one said. He was swearing and stamping about, that one.’ Lewis grinned. ‘You much safer with us mob.’ He sauntered off.
Ganai hunters had been out that night and the drovers had never known it. In this swamp country, on the rivers and by the sea, hidden eyes might be watching you at any time and hidden ears listening to your conversations. Erik tried to concentrate on the information. White men? Were cattle duffers out that night too? So George and Sep went on down the track; they had to go on, to pick up the other consignments.
Erik staggered to his feet and went away from the shelter. When he got back there was water waiting for him in a large shell and he washed. He could now see the bruising, particularly on his ribs. Breathing was painful, so he must have broken ribs.
The sun went down and the camp fire was lit; something was roasting. Erik was too weak to do anything but sit by the glow, watching the light on dark faces, listening to the laughter. He was given roast meat – had they in fact bagged a steer? – and a kind of damper. It was better not to ask where the meat came from. After the meal came the stories, a soothing murmur of sound in the tribal language that chimed in with the moving lights of stars, reflected in the water.
These people had saved his life and they were taking pleasure in it. ‘You right now?’ One by one they came up to him, shyly smiling, and touched his shoulder, the firelight flickering on their smiles.
‘Thank you, I’m right.’ Erik’s head was clearing. ‘Thank you, the meat was good.’
The next day Lewis showed him his horse Vulcan and the two dogs, tied up and waiting for him. Dan was nearly hysterical, his whole body wagging a greeting. Lewis grinned. ‘We could have ate the horse, but there’s plenty of meat.’
Thinking of riding home the next day, Erik found he was too weak yet for the hard ride into the hills. He couldn’t even climb onto Vulcan’s back in this state; he would have to rest and get his strength back.
For the next few days he went fishing with the men, ate the fish in the evening and slept soundly all night. But time was going by and he had responsibilities.
Had the stock agent told his mother he was missing? ‘I’m worried that my mother doesn’t know what has happened,’ he told Lewis as they sat under a tree one day. Erik had promised to send a letter from a post office on one of the early stages. How long ago had they set out?
‘No worry.’ Lewis spread his hands in a gesture of calm. ‘My cousin told Rose you’re safe. She’ll tell your mother.’
‘Rose? How do you know her?’
Lewis laughed happily. ‘Sal and Auntie
Mary, they got to know her. And you Erik, you shouted out, like. When you were sick – you said the name two, three times. Before you woke up. So then I thought she’s your woman, but Sal says she lives with another bloke. It’s not good, ay?’ His expression changed to a serious frown. ‘But anyway, this Rose was happy when they told her. She must like you.’
‘She’s … a friend of my mother’s,’ Erik said quietly.
Lewis chuckled. ‘Oh, ay. You want her, you should ask for her, real loud. Good woman, Auntie Mary said.’
Erik sighed. She was a good woman. The less he said about Rose, the better.
‘But there’s more. Same day them bad eucy men took a shot, they hit Sal. And then – and then she died, after.’ Lewis was quiet for a time.
‘I’m sorry, that is very bad.’ What more could Erik say? Sorry we can’t all live in harmony, that we’ve never tried to understand each other. And now it’s too late, the patterns have been set. He sighed.
‘So we’re after catching them eucy men but they gone away.’ Lewis stood up and stretched. ‘One day we find them.’ He looked out over the water for a long time. ‘Anyway, you want to come on a duck hunt?’
Each evening a flock of ducks came in at dusk, circling down to a small stretch of open water near the camp. Tonight, hunters would be waiting. During the day nets had been spread in the shallow water, big nets made from tough creeper stems. Erik took his place in the group but he had no weapon. He expected to see spears but the seven or eight other men carried only curved sticks.
As the ducks came in, the tension grew until the leader gave a signal and the men shouted. The ducks took off again, swinging out in a wide circle over the swamp. It seemed an odd procedure. After a few minutes the birds came back, returning to the lake in a tighter group. Down, down they came and just before they touched the water, a rain of sticks beat down on them from above, pushing them into the nets. The ducks rose again and came back to the men’s feet; some of them were caught in the hand. Wading into the shallow water, Erik helped to pull the strings that drew the nets tight. ‘Goodness!’ he said.
The man next to him chuckled. ‘You never seen this before?”
Erik shook his head. He sometimes shot ducks to eat in the autumn, as well as other game. He always felt regret, a sadness that the game had to die. The dark people seemed to express this feeling, standing in silence for a few moments before carrying the harvest home.
The ducks were prepared by the women and roasted in the ashes of a fire, wrapped in wet bark. Hours later, they were eaten with damper made from yam daisies. After supper the songs began and Erik leaned back, content. He would worry about going home in a day or two. Apart from his injuries he could feel himself slowing down, adjusting to a different way of life.
How strange it was that white men had died of hunger in the bush, while these people lived so well. Of course, the swamp was a rich source of food but Europeans probably ate too much. These people were slim and seemed to be fit but they ate much less than he was used to. Perhaps, though, their way of life didn’t call for hard, regular physical toil, as farming did.
A few days later, reality came back with a thud when Erik saddled his horse, collected his dogs and departed for Moe. Now he could feel how stiff and sore he was and for the first time he noticed a lame leg that made riding difficult.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ The cattle agent scowled at him from behind the big desk. Duncan Black’s face was well formed for scowling although normally he wore a pleasant expression, being all things to all people as an agent needed to be. ‘You deserted on the first night out. I couldn’t believe it. I thought you were steady. Been on the grog ever since, by the look of you. Well, I won’t be employing you again, Jensen.’
Erik faced the hostile man across the desk, but he felt lethargic and the timeless influence of the dark people was still with him. There was no point in quarrelling. He had tried to clean up, not very successfully. The baggage roll was still on the horse, but he’d given most of his clothes to the Ganai men who had saved his life, which had pleased them. His shirt and trousers were in rags and his beard was clean but unkempt. No doubt he looked like a drunk. Outside, the horse and two collies waited, looking just the same as he did, but in better condition. Erik had lost a lot of weight.
‘Duncan, I’ve been ill,’ Erik said quietly. ‘Got knocked unconscious the first night. Can you tell me what happened to George and the cattle?’
‘The men have gone down the track, of course,’ Black said shortly. ‘Somebody has to get the job done. Sent me a note from Shady Creek – said they thought you’d gone home. They were angry with me for sending them out with a dud.’
‘I was knocked out,’ Erik explained patiently.
The agent was not listening. ‘Sep saw you go down. They thought half the herd had trampled you but when they went to look for the body, you’d gone.’ He shuffled papers irritably. ‘You managed to lose half the first mob between you and George knows what he’s doing, so you’re to blame.’
‘I suppose George is not back yet to tell you the tale?’
‘No. You lost a hundred head, prime steers they were. That’s a big loss and I’d bought them, I stand it. What possessed you to camp on the road that night instead of making for the stock paddock at Steve’s Creek? That’s what we agreed – you should have stuck to the plan. You had plenty of daylight to do it.’ Black glared at him.
Suddenly, light dawned and the facts fell into place. ‘We met a couple of young blokes a few miles out from Moe, bringing cattle this way,’ Erik told him. ‘They didn’t turn off down Moe River track as they should’ve and we couldn’t turn off at all, so the mobs got mixed up. It took hours to sort them out and those lads just stood and watched us draft them. You know how long that can take. It would have been worse but the other mob was young stock, so we could tell the difference.’ He looked at Black, willing him to understand.
‘So?’ The agent was shuffling papers impatiently.
‘I realize now what they were up to. They did that on purpose to delay us, so we couldn’t get to Steve’s Creek before dark. The steers were out in the open but they were well fed and watered. They bedded down quiet enough, so we thought it would be safe. We were set up – it was easy to rush them on the road.’
At last the agent was listening. ‘So you think the duffers delayed you.’
‘Yes. I think John Smith and his mates came back and stirred them up and managed to run off with half of them before George and Sep could get going.’ He paused. ‘I heard sudden bellowing … I don’t remember anything after that. I woke up in a blackfellas’ camp. You surely don’t believe I would have left them the first time anything went wrong?’ Erik sat down on a chair, feeling rather weak. ‘How long is it since we left?’
‘Six weeks, man.’ Duncan Black stood up and came round the desk. ‘George would have been back with the full tale by now, but he took another mob along the coast. I don’t know whether he worked out what happened. Well, it seems I owe you an apology, Erik.’ They shook hands. ‘Where are my cattle now, do you think?’
‘Lewis, the Ganai man that looked after me, thought they’d gone south. Maybe they’d run them down to Port Albert and ship them round the coast, change the brands on the way so they couldn’t be traced.’ Erik thought a moment. ‘The young stock they were driving might have been stolen, too.’
Black sighed. ‘We’ll never catch them now … cattle duffers are getting worse all the time. You’d better give me a description of these young thieves. Now, come to my house and clean up afore your mother sees you. If you go home like that she’ll never let you out again.’
Freda was startled, even after Erik’s ‘clean up’, when her son rode into the yard that evening and climbed stiffly down from the saddle, landing rather heavily. She held him tightly and he tried not to wince; the ribs still ached. Looking down at her, he thought she had aged while he’d been away.
‘Oh, Erik, you’re so thin,’ she said, leadin
g his horse into the stable. The dogs played around her, happy to be home. Erik felt so weak he leaned on the stable door and watched his mother look after the animals.
In the house, Freda lit the kerosene lamp and pulled a pot of stew on to the stove. ‘I’ve made some bread today … now, sit down and tell me about it. I heard you were safe, but no more. What kept you?’
Under the shaggy hair Erik could still feel a large bump on his head. He’d been lucky to live, but the headaches still persisted. ‘Give me a glass of something strong and I’ll tell you.’
It had been a long ride and Erik wanted to go to bed, but he had to talk to Freda. The collie Dan, the only one allowed in the house, sat on his feet as though willing him to stay at home and no doubt his mother felt the same. When he’d told the story, Freda gave a sigh. ‘What a good job the Ganai were there … but I can’t understand how they knew to tell Rose that you were alive, even when they didn’t seem to know your name. The drover is safe, that was the message.’
Erik suppressed a yawn. ‘It’s surprising what those people know, Mother. They must have known where we live – I’d seen some of them before in Moe – and they probably gave the message to the only person they could talk to up here. Most of the settlers are afraid of them, you know.’
‘It’s a pity. Rose asked me one day why we can’t be more friendly with the Ganai. I suppose, on both sides, the gulf is too wide.’
‘I felt quite at home with them, you know.’ Erik was already half asleep. ‘I suppose it’s a good life in summer, but I wouldn’t want to be living outside in the cold winter months. Lewis and the rest … they were so genuine, somehow.’
SIXTEEN
IT WAS THE next day before Erik asked his mother for her news. They sat at breakfast in the sunny kitchen and Freda ladled out porridge as she told him what had happened on the farm. Then she said, ‘There’s bad news, I’m afraid. Luke Teesdale was killed. Rose is taking it badly, which is not surprising.’