“Miss Ashwell? I’ll not hurt you. Everything’s all right. Just come with me.”
Grace turned and ran, her bare feet slipping on the muddy undergrowth. She heard the soldier calling out. A second voice.
Their footsteps grew closer. The mud beneath her feet gave way and she slipped into the shallows of the river. She scrambled out desperately, wet skirts tangling around her legs. A rough hand grabbed her wrist.
“Let go of me!” She made a wild swing for the man’s face, but he forced her to the ground. She thrashed beneath his arms, shrieking and cursing.
“Calm down,” the soldier grunted. “We’re not here to hurt you.”
And a second pair of hands was on her, pinning her ankles to the ground. She kicked hard.
“Get off me!” she shrieked. “You ain’t taking me back to that hell! I ain’t no lunatic!”
A sudden crack and the first man fell sideways, the stock of Alexander’s rifle flying into the side of his head. Before the second marine could react, Alexander had pulled the trigger. A man trained to fight. The soldier fell across Grace’s legs. She scrambled out breathlessly from beneath the bloodied body.
The two men lay on their backs amongst the undergrowth. One stared into the white sky, blood gushing from the side of his head and running into the river. The second looked to Grace with fluttering eyes. A dark stain crept across his middle. Blood was blooming from his mouth. Grace pulled off her shawl and pressed it hard against the bullet wound below the man’s ribs.
“What are you doing?” Alexander emptied the balls from the dead marine’s cartridge box and shoved them in his coat pocket. He picked up their guns.
“He’s still alive.”
He yanked Grace to her feet. “Get up. He’ll be dead in a minute.”
She looked up. The man she saw terrified her. His eyes were dark and soulless. His stubbled jaw was clenched and splattered with blood. For weeks she had tried to convince herself Alexander was incapable of murder. Convince herself of his innocence. But in the glassy eyes of the soldiers, she felt herself take a step closer to the most dreaded of possibilities: that he had the blood of her little girl on his hands.
“You wanted them to take you back?” he puffed. “Is that what you wanted?”
She shook her head stiffly, afraid of the dark in his eyes.
Alexander charged back to the hut. Grace followed hesitantly.
“There may be others.” He threw open the lid of the wooden chest, pulled out the cartridge box and powder. He snatched the boiler and canteen from the table and wrapped them in a shirt. Into the bundle he crammed the last of their bread and smoked meat, along with his whittling knife. He tied the sleeves into a square package. “Get your boots.”
Grace grabbed her shoes and stockings, too afraid to argue. She pulled them over her muddy feet and tied the laces with shaking fingers. Alexander shoved one of the rifles into her hands.
“Take this. You might need it.”
She shook her head. He cursed under his breath and grabbed the axe from the chest. “Then at least take this.” He thrust it towards her. The stained blade stopped inches from her hands.
She wrapped her shaking fist around the handle. “What are we doing?”
Alexander slung the package over his shoulder. He tucked his rifle beneath his arm and marched back out to where the soldiers lay. “We have to bury the bodies.”
*
Choose to believe him or not, but before those soldiers, Dalton had never shot another man.
He’d spent two years marching up and down the training base, but they never saw him fit to be placed in the line of fire. He was buzzing with the feel of it. But the echo of the gunshot had shaken him. How far had the sound travelled? How many ears had heard?
The ground was wet and soft at the foot of the mossy pine tree. Dalton used his hands, tearing through the knots of ferns and roots. Grace dug with the boiler. The marines’ blood was on them both; on wrists and hands and clothes. Dalton had laid them face down so the bastards couldn’t look at them.
Grace didn’t speak. Just knelt down and dug. Now Dalton had gotten his voice back, he couldn’t bear this stillness where there ought to have been words.
Finally she said icily: “Is it deep enough?”
“No. More.” It was deep enough, yes. But he didn’t know where they went from here. They couldn’t go back to the hut. It wouldn’t be long before more soldiers came looking for the missing. They’d come for him. For them. So for now, he’d just keep digging.
A few minutes more and Grace flung down the pot. She threw her bloodstained shawl into the hole. “Just do it, for God’s sake. I can’t bear the sight of them lying there no more. Bury them and be done with it.”
Dalton dragged the bodies by the legs and rolled them into the muddy graves.
Grace chewed her thumbnail. “Ought we say something?”
He kicked a spray of dirt over the bodies. “Say what?”
“I don’t know. A prayer perhaps.”
He snorted. Grabbed the pot and began to bury them. Pack the earth tight or they’d be sniffed out by the tigers.
“I never saw a man killed before,” said Grace. The fingers in her mouth were shaking.
They stood on the damp soil of the graves. “We can’t go back to the hut,” said Dalton. “There’ll be more of them.”
Grace shook her head. “I want to stay.”
“They’ll find you if you stay. They’ll find you and they’ll find the blood on the track and what did you think they’ll do then?” Anger flared inside him. “Eleven years I’ve been out here and not a peep from the authorities. Then you turn up and bring half the fucking cavalry with you! They were out here looking for their little escaped lunatic!”
“I ain’t a lunatic!” she hissed.
“Then I did you a favour.”
Grace wrapped her arms around herself. “I ain’t going anywhere with you. So if you’re planning to kill me, you’d best do it now."
Dalton snorted. Such paranoia. Perhaps he should have tried to calm her, reassure her. But he was hot and wild with anger. “If I were to kill you, don’t you think I would have done it when I killed Violet? That’s what you think, aye? That I tossed her in the river and let her float back to Hobart Town?”
At the mention of Violet’s name, deep sobs began to well up inside her. She curled into a ball beside the graves, hugging her knees, burying her eyes in her muddy skirts. Dalton felt full of resentment. He knew those marines had been sent to look for her. Sent by Harris and the New Norfolk police.
Find her. She’s in danger.
And the only men who had ever come looking for him were the ones who wanted his back flayed and his neck broken.
“Here’s how it is, Grace. I can’t go back to the hut. I can’t take the chance now the marines are in the area. So you either come with me into the bush, or you go back to the hut alone. They’ll find you there and they’ll take you back to your Mr Harris. They all think you’re mad. Remember, he threw you in the asylum because you dared stand up to him.” He picked up the pack. “So unless you want to go back there, you’re just going to have to trust me.”
Grace’s jaw tightened as she stood. “Where will we go?”
“We’ll head northeast. Without the traps we’ll struggle to find food this time of year. We’ll have to get closer to the settlements. Steal from the farms, or the drovers on the Hobart Road.”
“Settlements?” A flicker of light in her voice.
They’d need to build a new shelter. With what? His blunt axe could cut little but bark and vine, his saw was long rusted. The ropes of his traps were fraying and his boots worn through.
“We can make Bothwell or Hamilton in four days,” he said. “Get supplies from the farms. And then build somewhere new to live where the law won’t find us.” He thought of his hut with its thatched roof and crooked bark door. Six months of cutting, hauling and hammering. That patch of earth was his world.
He
began to walk, away from his world. Clouds hung grey and low, an Irish sky. He shoved the rifle into the pack and took the axe from Grace, using it to hack away the tangled branches in front of them. Beating a path towards civilisation. Not an easy path, he was sure of it. There were mountains this way. Roaring rivers, glassy lakes. He told himself he’d follow the stars, like Greenhill had done.
But look where Greenhill had led them.
In the falling shadows, he imagined them; Greenhill at the front, whispering with Travers and Pearce. Kennerly and Brown hunched together, plotting their escape. Mather and Bodenham in the middle; doomed men.
Dalton was alert to every crackle and hiss, every popping twig. The bush itself was breathing. He saw this dark forest for what it was; a great living entity that kept secrets and took lives. How insignificant man became when pitted against it. These woods had the power to turn men against each other. To send comrades running in the night with bloodstained axes. And yet, there was a savage beauty to this place Dalton was sure existed nowhere else on Earth.
They walked for two hours or more without a word. When Grace said: “Slow down, Alexander,” it made his heart bound into his throat.
She started to sing. Keeping herself calm, he supposed. He wanted to tell her to stop— what if there are soldiers about to hear you?— but the sound of her voice made those dead men disappear. He glanced over his shoulder at her. Her head was drooped, her singing flat and tired.
Here, give me your hand. Lean on me a little.
But he couldn’t dig out the words.
*
“We can’t make a fire,” said Alexander. “In case someone should see the smoke.”
They’d made it into the foothills on the fringe of the mountains. The ground had risen and the temperature plunged. Thick dark was falling over the forest. Grace’s breath made a silver cloud. She stumbled over a log and fell forward.
“Stop,” said Alexander. And like that, down he sat, right in the middle of the path they’d beaten. No shelter but the thick canopy of trees. No warmth. No light. At least she’d managed a fire on those dreadful first nights with Violet.
She sat several feet from him, needing her distance. But he shuffled closer to her, his hand brushing the edge of her skirt.
“Your dress,” he said. “It’s soaked.”
She hugged her knees. “The soldiers chased me through the river.”
Alexander paused, breathing heavily. “I’ll light the fire,” he said finally.
“No. No one can find us. I ain’t going back to the asylum. I’d rather freeze.”
He took off his coat and slid it over her shoulders. She buttoned it over the top of her cloak, pushing her chin against its coarseness. Heat from Alexander’s body infused the rough wool.
He untied the pack and broke an end off the stale loaf of bread. Grace struggled to swallow. The thing was too tough and tasted of charcoal. When she reached out to put it back in the pack, she realised she couldn’t see her hand in front of her. The darkness was absolute. She tried to slow her breathing.
It’s just darkness. That’s all. Just darkness.
“We’ll take turns keeping guard,” said Alexander. “Listening for them.”
Grace cradled her knees. She was far too agitated to sleep. Far too cold. Far too afraid. Her legs were wet and achy, her eyes stinging from old, dry tears. She wanted nothing to do with Alexander. But nor could she bear to be alone. She sat close enough that she could hear his breathing. A little assurance the forest had not taken him the way it had taken Violet.
A horrid, throaty scream echoed across the bush. Alexander moved suddenly, clattering the pots at his feet.
“It’s just the devils,” said Grace, swallowing hard. “You know that. You’ve heard it a thousand times.”
He rustled the ground. Mumbled in Irish.
“What? What did you say?” She heard him leap to his feet. Footsteps passed back and forth as he paced like a dog in a thunderstorm. “The soldiers ain’t here, Alexander. No one’s followed us.” She lay back and closed her eyes. Tried to convince herself there would be light around her when she opened them. Convince herself the darkness was a choice.
“What are you doing, Grace? Don’t go to sleep. Please don’t go to sleep.”
“I ain’t going to sleep.”
“Leave!” he yelled suddenly.
“Who’s there?” She leapt up. “The marines?”
Alexander’s voice dropped. “Get the hell out of my head.” His words disappeared into the night, leaving only the hiss of the bush. An owl struck up with a pale coo.
Grace touched his wrist. His skin was hot, despite the bitter cold. “Alexander, tell me what happened out here.”
“You don’t need to know.”
“Yes I do. You’re scaring me. I need to know what’s in your head.”
He stood beside her, silent for a long time. Finally, he said: “We escaped from Macquarie Harbour. Eight of us. Me and Pearce and Greenhill and some others.”
“No one escapes Macquarie Harbour.”
“Well, we did. We were fools. But we had to try. The place was hell. We laboured like animals. Lived in wet clothes, shared our beds with rats. So crammed together we had to sleep on our sides. I had twelve more years til I was a free man. I’d never have made it. I’d have taken my own life.” He sighed heavily. “We stole a boat. Greenhill was a sailor. Said he’d get us off Van Diemen’s Land. But the marines came after us. We had to run into the bush instead.
‘Greenhill, he got us lost. Took us round in circles. Into the heart of the island.”
Grace saw them then, in her mind’s eye. Eight convicted men. She and Alexander were walking in their shadows. She waited for him to continue, but no more words came. “And then?” she said finally.
“There was no food. No shelter. Men died. Bodenham first, then the rest. It’s like you said, no one escapes Macquarie Harbour.”
“Except you.”
“Aye, well. Guess I was the lucky one.”
The lucky one. She’d always believed a person made their own luck.
Seven dead men and one survivor?
In her mind’s eye, she saw the rifle arc through the air. Saw the marines crumple. Was it possible these bolters had fallen at Alexander’s hand too?
She couldn’t bear to be near him. She walked with arms out in front of her, feeling her way like a blind man along the narrow path they had beaten. Without sight, her other senses were heightened. The screaming devil, the sigh of the wind. Wet leaves grazed her cheek. The ground dipped suddenly and she stumbled on her skirt. The earth felt unsteady. The blackness turned everything on its head. She looked upwards. Where were the stars? The moon? Suddenly being alone was more terrifying than the possibilities of what Alexander may have done.
“Where are you?” she called, panic rising.
“I’m here.”
She heard him shuffle towards her.
“You asked,” he said. “You wanted to know.”
“What happened to the other men? How did they die?”
“I told you. There was no food. You think the land here is harsh? It’s nothing compared to what’s in the west.”
Grace could hear the bush move. She imagined it closing in around her, circling, entrapping. “Why did it spare you?”
“I found a native camp. Found the berries. Found a ring of cattle duffers who fed me til I was strong again.” He paused. “You doubt me.”
There were soldiers about. Her best chance was to go back to the hut and try and get herself found. Holler until those men pushed through the trees. They’d take her back to Harris and New Norfolk. But she couldn’t stay here in this restless forest with a man who left a trail of death behind him.
She began to walk again. Quicker this time. The ground was slippery and uneven. She pushed through wiry branches and felt them whip back in her face. Her shoulders bumped against tree trunks.
“Grace?”
She began to run, ploughing
through the mud and ferns like she was knee deep in snow. She’d lost the path. She hunched low and kept running; pulling her skirts up over her thighs. A sharp branch stabbed her cheek. She reeled backwards with the shock of it, thudded against a tree trunk and fell to her knees. Pain shot through her shoulder.
She heard the strike of flint, saw a flicker of light. Alexander came towards her, holding a flaming branch out in front of him.
“You can’t leave,” he said. “I have the food and the water and the gun.” He lowered the branch so it was close to her cheek. “If you leave, you’ll die.”
Grace squinted in the hot light.
“You’re bleeding.” Alexander pressed the cuff of his shirt against the cut beneath her eye. He took her arm and helped her stand. “I know you don’t want to be near me,” he said. “But it’ll get near freezing tonight. If we don’t stay close we’ll likely not survive.”
Grace could hear his teeth knocking together. She took off his coat and pushed it back into his hands. He dropped the branch and stamped out the flame. The darkness seemed thicker than before. If such a thing were possible.
His hand tightly around her wrist, Alexander led her back to the path, navigating the dark forest like he was following their scent. Grace’s foot slammed into the boiler and she knew they had returned to their camp.
She curled up on her side, cradling her aching shoulder. Alexander wrapped his arm over her, then his leg, encircling them both in his coat. His breath ruffled her hair.
Grace tensed, both repulsed by and craving his nearness. “Where?” she said. “Where did they die?”
“Forget them. Stop talking about them.” His voice was taut.
She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to sleep away the darkness. “You can’t forget them. So why should I?”
PART TWO
Forgotten Places Page 10