I was wrong.
When I reach the ash-heap I shuffle around behind it. Now it lies between me and the grave. Beyond the grave stands the marked tree; up in the tree, barely visible from where I’m squatting, is a patch of grubby white linen.
I wish I had some linen now. I need to bind my hand, but I can’t tear a strip off my shirt in case Carver hears me. I can hear him; he’s crashing through the bush, heading in this direction. I don’t have much time.
The carbine slides from my shoulder onto the ground. Quickly I shrug off my coat and wrap it around my injured arm. I have to bite my lip to stop myself from whimpering. Sweat stings my eyes; I’m shaking like someone with a fever.
A coating of ash might disguise me, but if I stir up the fine grey powder it’ll drift into the air like smoke.
There he is. Lurching out of the shade, a musket in each hand, dark, bloody, misshapen—a corpse walking. God ha’ mercy.
He’s seen the blood on the tree. His head jerks up. He steps back and drops one gun as he raises the other, peering at the branches above him.
He’s glimpsed what I left up there. I know he has.
‘Remember what I told you about that native bear?’ he says hoarsely, circling the bushes at the base of the tree. At last he reaches the gap in this ragged hedge; if he steps forward, he’ll have a clear shot at the stuffed shirt that I dragged up the tree yesterday evening, just before I dug Gyp’s grave. From below, the bundle looks like someone huddled in a woody fork, shoulders hunched, head tucked down. I was so careful putting it up there. I nearly fell, making sure I got it right. Rowdy thought me mad but I was afraid for Gyp.
I chose this site because of the tree.
‘You don’t learn, do you, Tom Clay?’ Carver wheezes. Every step is so heavy you’d swear it was his last. He moves as if he’s carrying a horse on his back, gasping for breath, limping towards the trunk. His eyes are on the canopy. One step. Two—
The ground breaks beneath his foot and he screams as the trap beneath him springs shut.
He drops his gun. Grabs the jaws that are clamped around his calf. Now, Tom! I should be sprinting but I’m stumbling instead, reeling towards him across the grass. He has his back to me. I’m closing in.
I’m nearly there.
He’s still screaming and it masks my approach. His hands move from the jaws of the trap to the chain, then to the peg, but I sharpened the peg and hammered it through a root. He’ll not get it out.
I reach his gun. I jerk it away. Aim it. Cock it.
He hears the click and swings around, suddenly speechless.
‘You’re the one who doesn’t learn,’ I tell him. Dangling a bait above a trap? It must be the oldest trick in the world.
His jagged teeth are bared. His breath hisses through them—short, sharp gusts of pain. His one eye is fixed on the muzzle of the gun wavering in the air just a few feet from his head. I’m trying to prop it on the coat wadded around my left hand, but the weight is too much. I can’t keep it still.
All the same, I won’t miss. Not from this distance.
I’ve never shot a man. Look at him: his good eye is a bulging red ball. His face is purple and grey—caked with blood—twisted—inhuman. I’d be putting him out of his misery. Do I want to do that?
‘You think you can break me?’ he croaks. ‘You want me to beg? You won’t break me. I’ll never beg. I’m flint. Granite.’
He’s mad. Mad and half-dead. He’s finished.
Slowly I lower my weapon. Then I take one step back, lift my head and howl like a wild dog.
‘You won’t escape!’ he rasps as I start to retreat. ‘I’ll come for you!’
Ignoring him, I go to pick up the other musket. It’s unloaded. I wonder if he’s run out of cartridges.
A real dog wails in the distance. How far away? About a hundred yards? I didn’t realise they were so close.
The chain jangles wildly as Carver shakes it, trying to pull out the peg.
‘You’d better run, Tom Clay!’ he gasps.
I’m not going to run. I can’t run. I don’t have the strength.
Another dog yaps and whines somewhere in the trees. It sounds troubled. It’ll be coming to investigate soon.
More groaning. More jingling. Doubtless Carver’s trying to free himself but I don’t look back to make sure. With a musket slung over each shoulder, I retrieve my carbine from the ash-heap.
Behind me, a dog growls.
‘Get!’ Carver cries. ‘Get out of it!’
Still I don’t look back. This time Carver won’t be running away. This time he’s met his match. I don’t have to linger here anymore.
Instead I make for the house across the paddock, dizzy but with hope in my heart. I can see a way forward now —just a glimpse—and I want to share it with Rowdy Cavanagh.
Behind me are noises I have to block out. So I raise my voice.
‘Rowdy?’ I yell. ‘It’s me.’ Walking away from the scuffles and snarls, I busy myself with plans for the future. Why not take Mr Barrett’s flour and tea, and some guns and blankets, and flee into the bush? Rowdy and I could sleep in caves and snare wild beasts. We could eat berries and roots. The settlers who’d see our fires would probably think us blacks and ignore us. The blacks who’d see our fires would probably think us Carver, and stay away.
I could tame a wild dog pup. One day. Perhaps.
The wild dogs behind me are bickering now. I don’t want to know why; I wish I could block my ears but my hand’s too sore. I’m queasy, parched, light-headed. I need to sleep. To heal. We should have time enough for that, before the troopers come. With meat and laudanum and shelter we’ll have a fair chance. What’s a finger, after all? My father lost an eye and was none the worse for it.
Here’s the kitchen where Gyp died. I pause for a moment to prop myself against a wall.
I feel so ill. I can still hear Carver.
‘Rowdy!’ I yell.
No reply. I stumble forward, past the winter chard, the turnip beds and the bean-stakes, until finally I reach the back stairs. I’m tottering like a drunkard; should I risk the trap I laid?
I’ll have to. The front door’s even better defended.
‘Rowdy!’
Still no answer. Carefully I step over the middle stair, knowing there’s a bear trap underneath. When I’m stronger I’ll have to move that. Will I have time to carve Gyp a headboard before we go? Will I have strength enough to bury those poor souls in the cool-room?
The pain is like a brand. I’ve never felt anything to match it.
‘Rowdy?’
The back door squeaks open. It’s very quiet. When I reach the bedroom I lean against the door-jamb to husband my strength.
Rowdy is lying in bed. He’s not moving. His head’s turned away from me.
‘Rowdy, wake up.’
He doesn’t even twitch. I sense it before I know it. The whimper I hear must be mine—it can’t be his.
No. Rowdy…
As I reach him, my knees buckle. I have to grab the bedframe with one hand; the other’s just a ball of pain. Propped against the footboard, I give him a shove. And again, hard. But he doesn’t wake.
He’s still warm.
‘Please. Rowdy.’ He can’t have left me.
I shake him. I hit him. I scream in his ear. It changes nothing.
I’ve lost my friend. I’ve lost my flock.
I’m all alone.
Epilogue
IT’S AS well Rowdy died in a soft bed. If he hadn’t, I would have given him those orange berries. He’d be lying beside me now, his guts turned to water, dying slowly in the dirt just as I am. I wouldn’t want his death on my conscience. I didn’t even kill Carver, in the end. I didn’t kill anyone.
Will that help me when I face judgement? Maybe it means I’ll see Rowdy again. And Ma. And Gyp. I miss ’em all, especially Gyp.
Leaves crunch; my eyes snap open.
I’m too weak to lift my head, but I know he’s there. A black. I ca
n see his dusty ankles, the base of his spear, the trailing hem of his cloak.
He says something in his language. Then he drops to his haunches beside me, still speaking.
It’s the same black. The beardless one.
He picks up a berry and thrusts it under my nose. Then he splits the fruit and removes the black seed, still chattering. Tosses the seed. Scoops out the white flesh. Discards the skin.
The flesh goes into his mouth. He waves his hand: he’s lecturing me. Should I not have eaten the seed, then? Should I not have eaten the skin?
He rises again and moves away. Did he take my gun? My flour? At least he didn’t take my blanket. I don’t begrudge the gun or the flour, but only a savage would deprive a dying man of his blanket.
Now that he’s gone, I can die in peace. The pain in my gut’s settled. I’m desert-dry, but my water-bag’s drained and I haven’t the strength to refill it. The thirst keeps dragging me back here, to this empty wilderness. Otherwise I could fall asleep and dream myself to death.
Footsteps. He’s back, and making no bones about it. Muttering to himself. Snapping branches. I can’t see what he’s doing, but I have to. I have to see.
Feebly I roll onto my back, squinting. There he is, over by that stump. He’s put a wooden vessel on the ground and is squatting beside it, his fingers working away at…something. He’s kneading the stuff in his hands. Dropping it into the bowl. Glancing in my direction to scold me, his voice impatient. What have I done? How have I caused offence? I’ve killed no one. Stolen nothing. He dusts off his hands, motions with one, then rubs his belly with the other. I don’t understand what he’s trying to say.
No, no, I can’t. I’m too tired. Too ill. Can’t hold my head up…or my eyelids…The sun’s on my face and all I can see is red…
But now I’m swimming out of the crimson dark and someone is shaking me. It’s him—the black. His face is close to mine.
His eyes are huge; there’s a fly on his cheek. He tucks a hand under my head and says something. I know it’s a question.
‘What…don’t…’ My voice is a thin creak. My throat is lined with sand. He’s holding his vessel to my lips, and there’s water in it. Water. Fragments of red gum soaking in a pool of water.
He tips the water onto my tongue.
Ugh, it’s bitter. But he won’t let me turn my head away. He forces the drink down, tipping the vessel higher and higher until it’s clunking against my front teeth. The taste’s not so bad once you get used to it.
When I’ve finished every last drop, he lays my head back down and grins—a crooked grin like Rowdy’s, but cleaner. More joyful. He talks like Rowdy too, on and on, pulling faces and motioning with his hands.
He’s telling me a story. There’s a gun in the story, because he shoots it. There’s a tall tree and a wild dog. I know there’s a wild dog because he throws back his head and howls like one. Then he laughs until there are tears in his eyes.
Is he telling my story?
At the end of the story he ruff les my hair and stands again. I follow him with my eyes. He’s emptied my pack all over the ground: everything’s laid out neatly. My tea caddy. My sugar tin. My safety matches.
He’s lit a fire. For me. Two dead fish lie beside it.
When he points at the fish and speaks, I nod.
‘Fish,’ I say, and he smiles again.
It’s a good enough beginning.
Catherine Jinks has published more than forty books for adults and children. She has won many awards including the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, the Aurealis Award for science fiction, the Adelaide Festival Award and the Davitt Award for crime fiction. Catherine is a four-time winner of the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award and in 2001 was presented with a Centenary Medal for her contribution to Australian children’s literature. She lives in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.
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Copyright © Catherine Jinks, 2019
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ISBN: 9781925773835 (paperback)
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