The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger

by Jackie French

  My feet touched the ground again. Billy hauled at my reins. His heels dug into my sides. In front of me the other horses surged away in one great thundering mob.

  And suddenly I knew what to do.

  I took off at a gallop. Billy crouched low on my neck, the reins loose now. ‘Go, boy! Go!’ he growled.

  They were far ahead of me now. It was like the times we had raced the wind. Even I can’t catch the wind. But I could catch those other horses. I was the King!

  My head hung low. I dug my hoofs into the ground, feeling it fly past below me.

  We had nearly caught up with them! But they were so tightly pressed together I couldn’t get into the mob, much less take the lead.

  I headed to the outside, just as Billy urged me to do the same. We knew what to do, me and Billy!

  My breath came in gasping pants. On…and on…and on…

  I was level with the other mob now, but three horses still streamed ahead of us.

  The yells of humans were like a wall of noise around me. But I hardly cared. All I could see were those other horses, far ahead.

  I pounded down the track. And suddenly the pack was behind me. There were only two horses in front of us now. We were nearly back where we had started.

  Vaguely I could feel Billy leaning down against my neck. My breath laboured as I pushed myself. Faster and faster still…

  I was gaining on another horse. I could hear its breath rasping in its throat. Or was that mine? My mane and tail streamed behind me, as though we truly galloped with the wind.

  One horse behind me, one to go. The human noise was a long shrill scream around us, but I didn’t care. Suddenly I knew I could run like this forever!

  Nearer and nearer. As we drew level the man riding the other horse tried to lash his whip against my eyes. He missed. He lashed again. I heard Billy swear. I would have bitten the other rider, but it was more important to pass him now, to run beyond them all.

  Suddenly I felt Billy pulling on my reins. Behind me the other horses were stopping too. Every horse was behind me, even the last, his head down, his breath coming in long sobs. I was gasping too, my sides heaving, trying to draw in air, sweat streaming down my neck and sides.

  Billy’s breath came in tiny cries. He bent down over my neck again to pat me. ‘We’ve won, boy! We’ve won!’

  I didn’t understand the words. But I knew what I’d done.

  I was the King.

  CHAPTER 32

  Billy, 1842

  He didn’t quite believe it. Conservative was still carrying his head and tail high, as though the big horse was ready to race again, to beat every horse here today if they would let him.

  Somewhere, in the part of Billy’s mind that was still thinking, he knew that there’d be offers to mate Conservative with half the mares in the colony now, after a race like that. Even without the prize money, his stallion was worth a fortune.

  They’d been halfway down the track, so far behind. He had been sure they’d come in last, if they finished the race at all, everybody laughing at the raw horse and his rider. But then that finish—they’d not only caught horses with a minute’s start on them, they’d finished three lengths in front.

  Conservative stood as though he owned the unsaddling paddock. There was no sign of fear now. It was as if the big horse ruled the world.

  Billy slid down onto the ground, Conservative’s reins still in his hands. Dimly he was aware of men clapping him on the back; an urgent offer to buy the horse for three hundred pounds.

  He shook his head. Sell Conservative? Never. They’d win again, him and the horse. And they’d breed the best horses in the colony.

  Roman John limped toward him. Annie pushed through the press of men, not even bothering to hold up her skirts this time.

  Annie…

  He’d won a race and won a wife. He couldn’t think of anything grander in the world.

  CHAPTER 33

  Billy, 1842

  He went to the Land Office as soon as it opened on Monday.

  He thought it would be easy to find a farm to buy, with so many men walking off their land. But the land they walked off was either far away, or it was dry, with no water for the stock to drink. He was leaving the Land Office when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Mr William Marks?’

  He turned. ‘That’s me.’

  The stranger was a few years older than Billy, tall and dark-haired, wearing a good suit and a silk top hat. He thought of the man in the top hat who’d courted Annie, and grinned to himself. That Top Hat wasn’t getting Annie now.

  The man gave a polite bow. ‘I saw your name in today’s paper. Congratulations, Mr Marks. I gather it was a fine race you rode.’

  ‘I had a fine horse.’

  ‘I went down to the camp-ground but your partner told me you had come here. My name is Goldberg. Mr Marks, will you please excuse me, but are you a Hebrew?’

  ‘Am I what?’

  ‘A Hebrew.’ The man looked at him patiently. ‘I know it is impertinence, Mr Marks, but the matter is urgent. The widow of a friend of my father asked me to find you. Her name is Mrs Moses. It was Mrs Moses who first saw your name in the newspaper. She has no sons, Mr Marks, and she needs ten men to make a Minyan, a congregation, to say Kaddish for her late husband. Do you know what Kaddish is, Mr Marks?’

  ‘It’s the prayer said for the dead,’ said Billy automatically, then added, ‘Why did you think I might be Hebrew?’

  Mr Goldberg looked at him shrewdly. ‘Your name. A hope. But you do know what Kaddish is. Are you a Hebrew then, Mr Marks?’

  Billy was about to shake his head. Jewish, Christian…whatever his parents had been was nothing to do with him. He’d been a pickpocket and a convict. Now he was about to be a married man. He hadn’t even thought about who would marry them, he realised, or even where they would be married. Not a church, he thought instinctively. At the town hall maybe…

  Kaddish. A Hebrew prayer. Did he even know the words to it? Traditions hidden so deep in his brain, like all his memories of family. Memories buried so deep they could no longer hurt.

  But even as he thought about not remembering, memories swam back: the scent of his mother’s dress, his father’s big hand holding his, reciting words. Men sitting in a room, in shawls and skull caps.

  No, he thought. That’s not who I am now.

  It had been so long since he had thought of his dead family. So much had been lost because the memories were too heavy to survive.

  Had anyone said Kaddish for his father? Did he even care? It was survival that mattered, things you could touch.

  He was about to shake his head, to walk back to Annie and her kitchen. That was his world now. But something in the man’s face stopped him.

  ‘Please. It matters a great deal to Mrs Moses.’

  He had so much now…would have, soon, at any rate.

  What could it hurt? To say the words for a dead man, if someone could teach them to him in time. A few breaths of comfort for his wife. If he died wouldn’t he want someone to comfort his Annie?

  ‘I know Kaddish.’ He smiled. ‘It is about all I do know. At least I hope I do. I don’t go to synagogue. I don’t go to any church. I don’t call myself a Hebrew either, these days.’

  ‘If we help with the words, will you say Kaddish with us for Mr Moses?’

  ‘I will say Kaddish.’

  Mr Goldberg had a carriage waiting. The dust rose about the wheels, mixed with the dried droppings of the horses and the milk goats that grazed along the footpaths.

  How long had it been since it rained?

  It had always rained, it seemed, when he was young, back in England, near the sea. Suddenly the memories came again, swift as a creek after the rain. And sitting in this fine carriage as though he had the right to it, knowing Annie was waiting for him, he let the memories come.

  Sitting on Mama’s lap while she read him a story, pointing out the words so he’d learn them too. How was it he remembered how
to read, but had forgotten her soft voice till now?

  Papa, tall as the doorway. What work had Pa done? He couldn’t remember. Perhaps had never known. You don’t question when you’re small. But there was a cottage, he knew that, and mint at the back door. Ma had sent him out to pick a handful of mint to make tea for their cough.

  But it was a fever, not a cough, that killed them. He remembered Mrs Haddock from next door, taking him to sleep with her sons. His parents must have been sick then. His throat grew tight.

  There had been arguments in the Haddock household. Had Mrs Haddock wanted to keep him? The journey in the cart to the workhouse, the long rows of pallets on the dusty floor. No, not dusty, for they had scrubbed it themselves every day.

  Then at last Master Higgins, sitting on the chair in the workhouse office, beaming at him. Knowing as they walked down the steps, the stink of boiled cabbage and potato gruel behind them, that here was a second chance. A new life.

  Master Higgins had stopped at a bakery and bought him a big loaf: day-old, but all for him. He’d eaten every crumb before they’d walked ten paces, he was so starved. And Master Higgins had patted his head. ‘You be a good manikin,’ he said. ‘You got a new fambly now. You work hard and ye’ll not be hungry again.’

  And now he had another ’second’ chance. With Annie. How many chances did you get in a lifetime? And how could you even know it was a second chance that had been offered if no one told you?

  It was strange to be chanting—stumbling through—these kinds of words again. Almost as though he belonged.

  But he didn’t know these men. Two, at least, didn’t know the others either; they had been recruited by Mr Goldberg, just like him. One was an old man, half-blind, who never spoke, as though his memory of all words had left him, except the words of Kaddish. The other was a boy, thirteen maybe, his grandson perhaps, who led the blind man by the hand.

  Thirteen. Old enough to say, ‘Now I am a man.’ Billy had been a skilled pickpocket at thirteen. But he remembered the words of Kaddish. He had never said Kaddish before, but he had heard the words so many times in that sweet lost world of his childhood.

  And then it was over. They nodded to each other. Those who were friends began to walk away together. Billy was about to leave too when Mr Goldberg stopped him.

  ‘Mr Marks?’

  He would have smiled if it hadn’t been for the solemnity of the ritual they’d just shared. ‘You want me to say Kaddish again?’

  Mr Goldberg did smile at that. ‘Perhaps. But that is not what I wanted to say.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Mr Marks, Mrs Moses and my father were partners. She has inherited several properties, but she has no wish to run them.’ He shrugged. ‘In short, Mr Marks, she would like to sell one to you. It’s called Slete’s Gully. It’s a good property,’ he added quickly. ‘Six hundred acres, part of it cleared, good water, a day’s ride from Goulburn.’

  ‘For how much?’

  ‘For twenty pounds, Mr Marks.’

  Billy stared. ‘Six hundred acres down there is worth a lot more than that, even now. They get rain when no one else does.’

  ‘Twenty pounds and a Kaddish, Mr Marks. That’s what it is worth to Mrs Moses. And for the other Hebrews in the Goulburn area—well, perhaps you will say Kaddish again, Mr Marks.’

  He met the man’s eyes honestly. ‘More like I won’t.’

  ‘Either way, the place is yours. For twenty pounds.’ He held out his hand. Numbly, Billy shook it.

  He didn’t tell Annie about Mr Goldberg, and give himself away as a Hebrew. Annie knew he’d been a convict, knew he’d been a thief as well. But this…

  They’d been missionaries, hadn’t they, the folks that rescued her? She’d told him her story. He knew she went to church each week with her employers, leaving the Sunday roast slowly cooking in the oven.

  She knew he wasn’t a churchgoer, but she’d never asked what religion he was—or rather, what he wasn’t. And she’s not going to know, he thought, not till we’re married. Not till he had his Annie, safe.

  He told her instead that Mrs Moses had lent him the balance of the property’s worth. Times were bad, and a widow woman didn’t want the bother of so many farms. Mrs Moses heard he was a steady fellow and she trusted him.

  Annie stared. And then she grabbed his hand and jigged him round and round the kitchen table, till Mary the housemaid came to see what the noise was. The master and mistress had heard it, up the stairs.

  Annie let Billy’s hands drop. She reached round and untied her apron. ‘You tell the master and mistress that I’ve quit,’ she said to Mary. ‘They can pay me what they owe me—fifteen shillings it is.’

  ‘But—but dinner…’

  Annie’s smile was as bright as the moon. ‘I’ll cook their dinner and their breakfast too, till they get another cook. But I’m not doing it as a servant. I’ll cook for them but I’ll make as much noise as I want, me and my husband here.’ She grabbed Billy’s hand again. ‘Me and my William.’

  She turned her smile on him. It could light up a room, he thought. Nay, it could light up a whole county. ‘My intended, Mr William Marks, of Markdale, in the county of Argyle.’

  I should have put my best boots on, thought Billy. And his trousers without the patches on the knee. That was him now, he realised. Mr William Marks Esq. And Markdale, the perfect name for their new home, more distinguished than Slete’s Gully. No one would ever think that a Mr William Marks of Markdale could ever have been Billy Marks, the convict.

  A new life and a new name. He lifted Annie’s hand again. A new wife, too.

  CHAPTER 34

  Billy, 1842

  They were married at the police station in Goulburn. Billy gave his place of birth as ‘Bristol’. He said he was older than he really was as well. No one looking through the Bristol records would ever find mention of a convict called William Marks.

  Annie too hesitated before she filled in the notice, but neither of them mentioned the hesitations to the other. It was best to keep their past disguised.

  This was a new life: no more Billy Marks, the convict; no more Annie Lamb, the squaw. Instead there would be Mr and Mrs William Marks, of Markdale, County of Argyle, New South Wales.

  Billy was glad that there was no clergyman available to marry them. He suspected there’d be a ruckus when Annie found out he wasn’t Christian, same as her. She’d want to get her babies christened…

  But that was in the future. Now there were men to hire to build the house—men who’d work for their rations and a few shillings in their pockets, hoping to get a regular job when the farm was going.

  It was hard to say goodbye to Roman John. The older man was giving up the tallow business: he’d made enough to get him by and his own farm was well set up by now, with more neighbours moving in every few months now the land was cheaper. He promised to visit their new place, but it wouldn’t be the same as working side by side.

  Billy wanted to get the house built before Annie came to join him. Annie refused. If he could live in a tent, then so could she. Besides, there were things she wanted organised. Who knew what mess men would make of a house and dairy, without a woman to tell them what to do?

  They bought a cart, second-hand but good, and hired a bullock wagon. No furniture yet—they’d make another trip to get that when the house was built, or hire a carpenter to come and build it from timber on their farm. His farm. Markdale. He said the words under his breath over and over.

  Markdale.

  He had ridden out to look it over before he’d signed the deeds of course, in case it was all a trick.

  Ah, it was a grand place! Good land, good water, trees that brushed the sky, thick with claw marks from native bears and possums. You only had to look at the dirt spilling from the wombat holes to know how deep the soil was, not like the thin skin of dirt over clay or shale like most of the colony.

  There was the spot for the house, and the first horse paddock over there. They’d need cows too, for Annie’s dairy—she
said that children needed milk, and good cooking needed butter. Wheat there, maybe, and corn for the horses there. Hens…a sudden memory of Ma feeding the hens when he was small. Red hens, clucking under lavender bushes.

  Annie drove the cart. Billy didn’t know why he was surprised that she could handle a horse and cart, and was a good rider too. His Annie could do anything: make cheese, tend bees for honey, sew her own clothes and his. She had recipes to help sick children or to make liniment for a horse. He’d taught her to fire a pistol too, in case of bushrangers or native attacks. Her first shot went right to the target.

  The cart held fruit trees—plums, quinces, apricots, pears, bush lemons, persimmons; and all the kinds of apple to be had: early apples, late apples, good keeping apples, so Conservative could have an apple every day. Nut trees too—walnuts, hazelnuts and chestnuts. You had to get fruit trees in fast, said Annie, so they’d be bearing by the time the children were old enough to eat them.

  There were rose bushes for out the front, a tent and blankets, a chest for Annie’s clothes and hats, another chest of lengths of calico, linen, muslin, broadcloth, flannel, needles, pins and thread. She’d already started sewing baby’s clothes each night.

  Billy rode Conservative. He liked to think no other rider could manage the horse. He would never let anybody try. The big stallion almost pranced along the roadway, as though he knew he was going to their first real home. Billy leant forward and stroked the big horse’s neck. ‘You’re going to your own paddock now, old boy. All the mares you want, and apples soon as well.’

  Behind them a bullock dray held even more: adzes, axes, long saws and cross saws, buckets, pitchforks, scythes, shovels and spades, a winch, a seed dibbler and sacks of seed, coils of rope, lime to mortar up their chimney, potatoes for planting and for eating, bags of flour and casks of salt and prunes to keep them regular, bee skips and veils, and three kinds of plough. You could buy a lot with nearly two hundred pounds, especially when you had a farm more or less given to you.