Absolution Creek

by Nicole Alexander

  Harold yelled.

  Sam quickly hoisted himself up onto the passenger side of the vehicle. Harold lay against the driver’s door, his body partially wedged by the steering wheel. ‘How on earth did you end up in that position?’ he asked.

  ‘Good driving, eh? Bet they don’t drive like that in the Big Smoke?’

  ‘Geez, you people are strange,’ Sam replied. He reefed open the door. ‘Anything broken?’

  Harold gave a grimace. ‘I’m pretty sure everything would be manipulating just fine if I could move.’

  ‘Well, that tells me nothing. Rope?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, behind the seat.’

  With the rope located and tied around part of the tray, Sam dropped the end to Harold. ‘Just tie it onto the steering wheel. I’m gonna come down in there and pull you out. The rope’s a bit of a –’

  ‘Safety line.’

  ‘Pretty much. I don’t eat as much as you fellas do.’

  ‘I know.’ Harold shook his head. ‘Saos.’

  Wedging his foot between the seat and the hump of the drive axle, Sam reached Harold quickly, pulling him free of the wheel. Harold managed to stand on the driver’s door.

  ‘Now we’re cooking.’ Sam grinned as he jumped from the vehicle to pull Harold free. They both landed heavily on the ground. ‘Well, at least you didn’t fall on me.’ Sam laughed.

  ‘My head’s killing me.’

  Sam shrugged off his coat. ‘Here, put this on and try and keep warm.’ He helped Harold to a nearby wilga tree, noticing that the man’s head wound was directly where the ram had struck him.

  ‘It’s a fair walk,’ Harold reminded him.

  ‘Do me good. See you soon, eh?’ Sam gritted his teeth against the cold and began the five-mile trek home.

  Meg was at the sink peeling potatoes as the day dwindled to a close. She added water to the saucepan of vegetables and checked the eggs simmering on the stove top. The twins loved to plunge buttery toast into the rich yolk and an easy dinner suited Meg. The day had become quite topsy-turvey after Cora’s weather forecast. Lunch was rushed; biscuits needed to be rebaked; Jill required disinfectant, bandaging and cuddles after a tumble outside; and firewood needed to be gathered and covered. The lady of the house had, of course, retired to her room.

  With the house quiet, Meg opened the letter she’d received that morning and had been carrying around in her apron.

  My dear Meggie,

  We have had our differences, you and I, however, regardless of your feelings toward me, please know that I write this with only the best of intentions.

  Cora Hamilton cannot be trusted. It is because of her that I lost the only father I ever truly knew. And it is because of her that your father walked out on both you and me when you were a baby. I am sure by this stage that I don’t have to spell out the reason why. Take a good look at Aunt Cora if you’ve not already guessed or been enlightened by another.

  You should know that Cora is my stepsister, however we are only related by marriage. I guess I should have told you that before.

  I am sorry you left home. That shouldn’t have happened. But now you’re up there take my advice. Believe nothing she says and accept nothing from her. She’s a trouble-maker, always has been. Please return to Sydney. I only need word from you and I will evict one of the tenants.

  Your mother, Jane

  Meg reread the letter and scrunched it into a ball. So it was true, Cora Hamilton wasn’t even her real aunt. Now what was she supposed to do? Pack up and go home? Meg tossed the letter in the Aga, slamming the door shut. Through the window a figure walked across the paddock. Meg was startled to see Cora climb over the low hedge to walk swiftly towards the approaching man. As he drew nearer she could see it was Sam.

  Meg was out the back door and racing towards her husband as Sam and Cora reached the work shed. Kendal was slouching against the blue utility, watching a mound of something burning on the ground. Meg could smell petrol and flesh and, whatever it was, it stank enough to entice Curly and Tripod to within a few feet of the burning mass.

  ‘Sam, Sam?’

  Meg felt her arm gripped tightly. ‘Everything’s all right. We tipped the truck and I had to leave Harold out in the paddock. I’ll get him.’ Her husband looked drawn, his features tight with cold and concern. He turned to Kendal. ‘Checked the feeder chains, did we?’

  Kendal stared at Sam, a blank expression on his face, the air thick with dislike. ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘Freezing, I’d imagine, in this weather.’

  ‘You’re bleeding.’ There was a rip down the front of Sam’s jeans, the area glossy with blood. Meg knelt to inspect the wound only to be brushed aside by Cora.

  ‘It’ll take more than that to kill him.’ Cora slipped onto the bench seat of the ute.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Sam agreed, ‘we’ve got to go.’ He sat behind the steering wheel and turned the ignition.

  ‘Me too.’ Kendal left the burning mass.

  ‘No.’ Cora held up her palm. ‘There’s not enough room. We’ll be back soon.’

  As the ute disappeared through the house paddock gate the twins arrived. They walked up to the molten black mass of scorched flesh, gooey moisture and scattered feathers, and turned opened mouths and wide eyes towards their mother.

  ‘It’s, it’s . . . What is it, Kendal?’ Meg asked.

  ‘An emu.’ Kendal kicked at the carcass. ‘Anyone would think he was their uncle.’

  ‘What are you killing the bird for?’ Jill asked. Tripod was by her side immediately, his wet nose nuzzling her bandaged knee beneath her stockings.

  ‘For the dogs to eat.’

  In the months since their arrival, Meg rarely found herself in Kendal’s company. He was a raggedy-looking youth with a mango-shaped head and thick eyebrows, and there was just something about him Meg didn’t like. ‘Is it normal to kill emus?’ she asked.

  Kendal eyed her off slowly. ‘Does it matter?’

  Tripod gave Jill’s hand a lick and joined Curly, who was already snuffling around the edge of the dead bird.

  ‘The meat’s good for them and so’s the oil. Gives them a real shiny coat.’ He ruffled Penny’s hair, his hand slick with dried blood. ‘It’s like you having to eat your vegies.’

  Penny screwed her nose up. ‘Yuk!’

  Curly set to chewing on the carcass, his growls of delight matching the twins’ chorus of yuk. Kendal laughed.

  ‘Come on, girls. Back to the house.’ By now Meg knew the eggs would have boiled dry, probably burning the bottom out of the saucepan as well. It was proving to be a long day.

  ‘You know, I told Sam to check the chain on the feeder properly. Make sure it didn’t tip and cause an accident.’

  Meg wrapped her cardigan more snugly about her.

  ‘I have to tell you, it’s a bit difficult having to carry Sam.’ Kendal kicked at the burning carcass. ‘He’s a good bloke and all, and I know Harold would never say anything, but you know, being the one that’s doing the work and not being paid, well it’s a bit difficult.’

  ‘I’m not really in a position to say anything, Kendal.’

  ‘Sure you are. You’re her niece. And you’re one of us, so you know how things work. One day she might leave you the place and then you’ll have the opportunity to put a few things right. You’ll be able to make the decisions that Harold reckons should have been made years ago. He’s a smart man, my uncle. Real handy to have on a property. Besides, a woman like you, you’ve got rights. Cora Hamilton, why she ain’t got so many. Personally, I don’t know how she’s got away with it for so long.’

  Meg wondered what her aunt had got away with. Having the audacity to manage the property when she was a woman? Or was she mismanaging it? Certainly the state of disrepair to the homestead was an obvious issue. Then there were her aunt’s two days of bed rest resulting in immediate changes to her instructions. Obviously the men didn’t agree with how she was running things as Harold had promptly ordered extra s
heets of corrugated iron and lengths of timber, and booked a truck to deliver the goods when they arrived. There was also a dozer coming to push scrub along the creek in the hopes of eradicating some of the pig-nesting areas. Apparently Cora was yet to be informed of these developments.

  Jill and Penny were arguing. They had made it partially back to the homestead when they had discovered some sun-weathered bones, which were now the subject of a furious debate about what animal they belonged to. Meg glanced in the direction of the girls, her mind spinning. First Kendal was blaming Sam, then he was talking about her aunt not belonging – not being one of them. It was bizarre. ‘I have to go, Kendal.’

  Kendal’s filthy hands smeared the crisp white paper as he rolled a cigarette. He gave her a wink as she left.

  Chapter 33

  Absolution Creek, 1924

  Jack wiped at the sweat on his brow and heaved one end of the timber onto his shoulder. Thomas strained at the opposite end. ‘They tell me it’s a privilege to take the heaviest end,’ Jack joked as his brother finally hefted the length of wood up and onto one shoulder. They slid the timber onto the stack already filling the dray and, tugging at the horse reins, began walking their load back to the new house site. It had been a fortnight since Olive and Thomas’s arrival, and with Jack worrying about his brother losing interest or altering the length of his stay, his first priority was to cut all the timber they required.

  ‘Is everything all right with you, Thomas?’ Jack gave the brown horse a whack on the rump to keep moving.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You’ve been a touch quiet. Olive too. You didn’t have a blue or something?’

  ‘Nope, of course not.’ Thomas made a show of dusting his trousers.

  ‘You’d tell me if something was up?’ Jack persevered. It took nearly three days to meet Olive’s eyes after what had occurred in the lean-to. Having never seen a near-naked woman before, Jack was at a loss as to what he should do. He knew what he wanted to do, but the wanting and the doing were two different things, and what he thought to be the good part was religiously aligned with marriage. At least that was what he’d been educated to believe. On the other hand there hadn’t been a great deal spoken about nakedness in church, which is why he watched Olive undress. ‘It’s just that Olive seems different.’

  ‘Does she?’ Thomas picked at a piece of bark on one of the lengths of timber. ‘Didn’t notice.’ He tried not to think about the day in the boarding house when Olive made him promise not to tell Jack what McCoy had done to her. ‘Guess women can be a bit like that – changeable.’

  ‘Changeable,’ Jack repeated. Maybe it was the bush, or the many months apart, or the simple fact that his girl was used to better things. Whatever the reason, Olive wasn’t Olive. She was skinnier for one thing, and quiet. So quiet that at times she seemed nothing like the girl who had kissed him so blatantly the day of his father’s accident. ‘Maybe she’s homesick.’ He thought of her body illuminated by the slush lamp.

  ‘Probably. I mean it’s a bit different for her. I don’t know if I would have come all this way for you, Jack.’ He batted his eyelids.

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘You’ll have to take her into town again, you know. Give her some civilising.’

  ‘I don’t have time for trips away, Thomas. Anyway, she saw Stringybark Point when you met up with Adams. She knows there are other women about.’

  ‘Saw it!’ Thomas laughed. ‘She asked one of the shopkeepers where the main street was when we were standing in it.’

  They approached the house site from an easterly direction. It was a pretty spot, with a thick line of trees on the western and southern approaches protecting it from the blazing summer sun and any nasty southerlies that might sneak their way in during winter. Having moved camp from the lean-to at Thomas’s suggestion, the building of the house was progressing nicely. A couple of hundred yards away from the site, Olive and Squib rounded the corner of the partially built house. Squib, dressed in a cut-down version of one of Olive’s dresses and a shady straw hat, carried two dead rabbits. They were arguing. The horse halted automatically at the pile of timber.

  ‘You caught them. You skin them.’ Olive brushed her skirt. ‘Jack, if you persist in eating this game instead of providing some decent sheep meat then let the girl prepare it. I’m afraid I wasn’t brought up to butcher animals.’

  ‘She should learn,’ Squib argued, dropping the rabbits in the dirt. ‘I’m not her slave, so if she wants to eat she has to do her fair share.’ Having finally thrown away the crutches a couple of days previously, she limped to a sandy spot on the ground and sat down.

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that, young lady.’

  ‘Are you going to let the girl stay here?’ Thomas asked Jack quietly as the argument raged.

  Jack shrugged his shoulders. ‘Adams will send the letter to the newspaper when he nears a town, although I had to push him to do it. Seems he thinks Squib would be better off here. Anyway, I gave a description, explained her story. So we’ll see who shows.’

  ‘You might have her for life.’

  ‘Then I guess there’ll be another mouth to feed. Besides, a bit of company won’t do Olive any harm.’

  Squib was sitting in the dirt with her back to the dropped rabbits. ‘I’m not so sure about that.’ Thomas looked at the skinny-hipped girl with the shoulder-length hair and berry-brown skin. ‘You like her, don’t you?’ He’d seen Jack look at Squib sometimes. Not the way he did at Olive. Thomas couldn’t explain it. It was the same, but different. In the city he didn’t think that a man like Jack, not yet in his twenties, would take a second look at a girl like her, but it seemed to Thomas that out in the bush everything changed. Squib was smart and easy to look at and she knew things that made Thomas feel stupid, even though he was older. He realised then that plenty of men out here would probably like a girl like her. ‘Well, Jack?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess I do.’

  Thomas hesitated. ‘Not more than Olive?’

  ‘Jack, will you do something,’ Olive yelled in frustration. ‘Either she goes or I go.’

  ‘No one’s going anywhere,’ Jack answered calmly. ‘Squib, show Olive how to skin the first rabbit, and then she can do the second under your instruction.’

  ‘But, Jack –’

  ‘No buts, Olive. We’re in the bush now, so you’ll have to learn how to live here. Actually, you should count yourself lucky that you have Squib to show you how to do things.’

  Together Jack and Thomas began unloading the long trunks. They felt rather than heard Olive’s approach.

  ‘I would appreciate it, Jack, if you didn’t talk to me that way in front of that girl. Your expectations are –’

  Jack dropped the log on the ground. ‘For heaven’s sake, Olive. This isn’t Sydney. Much as you’d obviously like to play ladies out here, in the bush there simply isn’t a place for it.’

  Olive looked to Thomas for assistance.

  ‘Everyone’s equal out here, Olive,’ Jack continued, ‘so everyone chips in and helps. Okay?’

  ‘Are we equal, Jack?’ Olive countered. ‘Are you sure you’re not favouring her?’

  Jack lifted another length of timber.

  ‘Look at me!’ she continued. ‘What were you thinking bringing me out here to this godforsaken place?’ Olive gestured around them. The landscape was dull with browns and beige. ‘And then to expect me to work like a slave and put up with a common street urchin in this dust-filled wonderland of yours. Absolution Creek is no place for a woman, Jack.’ Olive walked away.

  Jack tipped his hat back and scratched his forehead. ‘I’ve never heard her speak like that before. That was something I’d expect her mother to say.’

  ‘Well, that went well.’ Thomas slid the last length of timber from the dray. ‘You know she never sees you. You’re gone from sun up to sun down.’

  ‘I’m trying to make something for us here. I just don’t get what Olive expects of me.’

  Thomas
thought of Olive’s upbringing, of what she’d left behind. It was funny, although he was younger than his brother, he too had grown up since their father’s passing and Jack’s leaving of Sydney. Suddenly he was the head of the small household he shared with his sister, and he was beginning to understand why there was a rift between Jack and Olive.

  ‘Jack –’ he spread his arms wide ‘– you have this. This is your dream. But Olive has given up her entire life for you.’

  ‘And you don’t think that I haven’t given up anything, Thomas? Do you know how hard it’s been living up here for months on end, alone. Trying to learn how to manage a property with a handful of textbooks, worrying that any day I could be bitten by a snake, or drowned in the creek or attacked by blacks. Worse, I could be a failure and have to return to Sydney. Then where would I be? What would I do? Absolution Creek is my chance at a future. Olive knew that and she agreed to follow me, to be my wife.’

  ‘Jack,’ Thomas argued, ‘this is an adventure for you. It’s not for her.’

  Squib appeared, patiently offering a water bag so that both men could slake their thirst. Once finished, Jack reached out and ruffled her hair. ‘You’ll show her how to skin those rabbits, won’t you?’

  ‘I guess,’ Squib reluctantly agreed.

  ‘Thanks.’ Jack’s smile was broad.

  Thomas wiped his chin, and watched as Squib walked away. ‘I think she’s a bit old for that.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’ Jack counted the logs piled in the three triangular heaps on the ground.

  The three Aboriginal men came out of nowhere. ‘You boss?’

  Thomas automatically reached for Jack’s rifle in the front of the dray, only to find his hand stilled by his brother.

  ‘In case your aim is better than your judgement,’ Jack said evenly before approaching their visitors. He was aware of Olive rushing to Thomas’s side in fright, her leather shoes crackling the leaf litter. They’d grown close on the trip north. Maybe, Jack considered, a little too close. When Thomas finally left, Olive would miss him.