Dust Off the Bones

by Paul Howarth

  “It makes every difference.”

  “Not to me. Not to us. We’re still the same people, Katie. And look at us, look where we are. We’ve built a fucking empire.” He spread his arms to the room.

  “So it was worth it? Shame on you, Billy McBride!”

  She turned back to the window, and in the long silence that followed, Billy finished his whiskey and poured another, quickly drinking himself into a stupor, the deadening weight of the liquor, the air around him thick and full. Yet for some reason he wouldn’t leave her, wouldn’t walk out. He felt a need to persuade her, hear her tell him he was right. He fell into one of the fireside armchairs and sat staring at the ash in the grate, the upright clock counting the seconds, tick-tock, tick-tock.

  Finally Katherine joined him. Lowered herself into the other armchair. Watching him coldly, she said, “You’re going to tell me exactly what happened back then, Billy. The absolute truth this time, nothing altered, nothing left out.”

  It took a while before he could answer: “Why?”

  “Because you’re my husband, and I don’t have the slightest idea who you are. I thought I did, but I was kidding myself. There’s a hole running through you, eating you alive—I’m scared one day it’ll swallow the rest of us too. Tell me, then at least there’s a chance I’ll understand. At the moment all I can think is the worst.”

  And he could feel it rising inside him, the truth, threatening to erupt. A truth he’d been hiding from himself, even; whose every glimpse scared him to his core.

  “You’ll hate me.”

  “Maybe. But right now I can hardly stand to look at you as it is.”

  Billy shook his head. He needed another drink. He went to rise but Katherine put out a hand and he slumped back in the chair. “Christ, Katie, I was only sixteen.”

  “That doesn’t change what happened.”

  “But it does—don’t you see? First into that house, finding Daddy and Ma, Mary dying, Tommy spilling his guts on the floor. I had to do something. I was the one, I had to choose. So we came up here and John brings in Noone—it’s not like I could have ever said no. Blokes like that, there’s no arguing with them, then they’ve got you, for the rest of your life it seems. Did you see the state of Drew Bennett in that courtroom earlier? Do you know what Noone did to him?”

  “Again, you were there, Billy. You talk like it wasn’t you too.”

  He looked at her with incomprehension. How couldn’t she see?

  “But that’s what I’m telling you. I had no choice, with any of it. I only went to the Bennett place because he threatened you and Tommy, I didn’t know he would burn down their fucking barn. He shot those four blacks after like they was nothing, like they wasn’t no better than dogs.”

  She didn’t know who he was referring to—the missing troopers, maybe—but at least she had him talking. She nodded and reclined a little, waited for him to go on.

  “See, that’s what I’m up against, the kind of man he is. Acts like this harmless politician but there’s something wrong in his head. And if I’d said what really happened in court today, I guarantee he’d be up here killing us all too.”

  What really happened—a prickle of fear down her spine. She tried to keep her voice even: “There’s only me now, though. We aren’t in any danger here.”

  “Aye, well, it seems like you already know anyhow, so . . .”

  Though she’d known it was coming, the admission snatched the breath from her chest. The truth, after all this time. “You mean, you did it? Like they said?”

  And he laughed then, somehow. Laughter riven with pain. “None of them knows the fucking half of it.” Casting about the room frantically; his body had begun to shake. “Yes, we caught them others in the ranges, but there wasn’t no gunfight or anything like that, just had them chained back-to-back in the camp. Locke did one on account of that spear but John said if I killed the other and . . . if I killed him and . . . I’d be a man by the morning, he said.”

  She asked it as gently as she could: “If you killed him and what?”

  He couldn’t look at her. “There was this gin they had tied up on the ledge behind. John took her to this cave and . . .”

  He drifted into silence. “And what? What did you do?”

  “I shot the black with Locke’s revolver but it went in near his neck, bloke wouldn’t die, kept reaching out, like this . . .” He mimed it, the clawing. “I couldn’t get another round in to reload. Tommy had to finish the job.”

  “The woman, Billy.”

  “I had no choice, we all . . . it wasn’t just me, everyone took a turn.”

  Revulsion surged through her, a bilious, violent lurch. She cupped her hand to her mouth and managed to keep it down, her eyes on him cold as stone.

  “I ain’t proud of it,” Billy pleaded. “But John forced me just about.”

  She swallowed painfully. “Did he force Tommy too?”

  “It was never the same for him, though, was it? Tommy had me to look out for him—who did I have, Katie? Who did I have?”

  She was silent a long time. “And after? The tribe?”

  Billy shook his head, stared at the dead fire. “It was too late when I realized. There wasn’t anything I could have done. Aye, we killed the lot of them, just like they said. But d’you want to hear the funny thing: Joseph wasn’t even there!”

  He began laughing wildly, breaking now and then into tears. They gathered in his eyes and fell down his cheeks and he did not wipe them away. And they were for himself, Katherine knew, not the Kurrong, not that woman in the cave. Impassively she watched him keening, his head in his hands, fingernails clawing at his hair, until abruptly he managed to stop himself and sit upright, attempting a smile as if, because it was out now, everything between them was somehow all right. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and left a smear of blood behind, scrubbed it idly with the opposite thumb. Suddenly so calm now. So detached.

  “How many? You, personally, how many did you kill?”

  “Christ, I don’t know. Maybe a dozen. I didn’t count.”

  “Women? Children?”

  Sniffing, still distracted by the nosebleed: “No, only the men.”

  “But the others did. None was spared, that lawyer said.”

  “That was them, not me, it was Noone and that lot wanted the Kurrong dead.”

  She turned away, disgusted. Couldn’t stand to watch him snivel anymore. In the corner of her eye she saw him flap out his handkerchief and dab his nose, wiping away the blood, mucus, tears, all of it. Because it really was that easy for him. Wipe it all away.

  “Listen, I’m sorry, all right. The whole thing was a mistake. But it’s done now, isn’t it. And if we hadn’t, if things hadn’t gone how they did, you and me wouldn’t be sitting here like we are. So there, I’ve told you, but can we just forget about it now? There’s nothing to be gained by raking over the past. And besides, there’s plenty men out there have done much worse than me.”

  She still couldn’t look at him. Facing the fireplace, her eyes distant and glazed, she took a long breath and said, “You might be right. But then isn’t it all just degrees of worse? Do you know how many times I have been raped, Billy? Not the incident with Charles Sinclair, I mean actually raped like that poor woman in the cave?” He stared at her dumbly; she said, “No, neither do I. It’s happened so often I’ve lost count. Every night John rolled himself on top of me and had his way, and I truly could do nothing about it. Not a thing. They say a husband cannot rape his wife but I’ll tell you he bloody well can. You were the first man I ever chose to be with, you are the father of my children, the only man I have ever loved, and now I find out you’re no better than him.”

  The look she gave him was withering. Like he was nothing at all.

  “I already said: I wish it never happened, but it did.”

  “You don’t though, do you—those are crocodile tears. Look what we’ve become, you told me, like it was all worth it in the end. Even that’s a lie
you tell yourself: yes, you’ve been a decent enough headman for the station, but this empire you lay claim to, it’s still mine. How you talk now, how you dress, that ridiculous billiards table, your lord-of-the-manor act, none of it has actually been earned.”

  He slid from the armchair and waddled on his knees toward her; Katherine folded her arms. He cupped her knees, pawed her ankles, calves, feet, mumbling, “I’m sorry, Katie, I’m sorry. But what can I do? What can I do?”

  Loud as a whipcrack the slap struck his cheek. Billy rocked back on his heels.

  “Take some responsibility. Stop blubbering like a child. Make amends, somehow. Repent. All your life the only standard you’ve ever set yourself is your own father, which from what I can tell is a pretty low fucking bar. So do something. Be a better father, better husband, better man; why not try to be kind?”

  “I will, Katie, I’ll—”

  “But if you mistreat our children again, Billy . . . if you dare lecture William on how to be a man, if you speak to me out of turn, if you jeopardize their futures or hurt any of us in any way, I will tell the authorities in Brisbane exactly what went on out here, the lies you told, what you did, and see to it you are prosecuted. Or better yet I’ll spare us all the trouble and put a bullet in you myself.”

  She stood so suddenly that Billy fell backward and lay sprawled on the rug by the hearth. Katherine stepped over him and strode from the library, her footsteps echoing through the atrium then padding upstairs. Billy clambered to his feet and gazed lost around the room, staggered to the cabinet and poured another Scotch. He sat back down in the same armchair. A line had been crossed, he knew. He’d wanted so badly to get it out of him—the truth like a tumor, it had felt like he was dying today in that courtroom—but the pain of his secret was now replaced with the deep dull ache of loss. No hiding from that one. No pretending it didn’t exist. He lit a cigarette and smoked in snatches, staring at the ash in the fire grate, remembering white flakes, like snow, drifting all around. And there he remained, alone in the library, in that vast and silent house, his wife locked away upstairs and not a friend in this world, as twilight fell through the window outside and darkness steadily closed.

  Chapter 27

  Henry Wells

  The key scraping into the cell door woke Henry from a painful, fitful sleep. Huddled in his threadbare blanket on the filthy flagstone floor, he raised his head to find Donnaghy standing over him, his face in shadow from the oil lamp he held in his outstretched hand.

  “Move.”

  Stiffly Henry struggled to his feet, dropped the blanket on the floor. He felt like he’d been assaulted, though the blows he’d feared in the night had never come. Still, his body felt bruised and uncertain, his vision was slow, his mind confused: he put a hand on the damp wall to steady himself, took a moment to catch his breath. He’d been locked in this cell since the inquest ended, late yesterday afternoon. For his own protection, apparently; MacIntyre had claimed the locals would tear him apart. A likely story, given the conditions he’d been kept in. He was being punished, and for what? Daring to speak the truth in a town filled with denial? Asking a clearly corrupt magistrate to do his job? He was now even more worried about Reverend Bean. With no money, no clothes, no supplies, he wouldn’t have taken off on his own. Besides, the man was here to clear his conscience, purge his soul. He was dying, he had told Henry—after making it this far, why not testify?

  Out of the cell Henry staggered. Donnaghy followed him down the narrow corridor, the light from his oil lamp flickering, the guard whistling a jaunty tune, all the way to the lobby, where, in the gray light of daybreak through the open front door, Magistrate MacIntyre was waiting with Henry’s valise and briefcase at his feet.

  “Sleep well?” MacIntyre asked him.

  “Barely a wink.”

  Henry couldn’t conceal his disdain. This man was no kind of judge. In any other courtroom Henry’s cross-examination of Noone would have turned the hearing, yet MacIntyre had always intended him slipping the noose. Henry had so nearly had him. He’d felt it, and a lawyer knows. But then Noone had gone on his rant and swung the gallery—Henry could almost respect such skills. In another life he’d have been quite the force at the bar.

  “Well, count your blessings, at least you’re still alive,” MacIntryre said. He glanced at the bags at his feet. “I had your things packed up and brought over, and there’s a coach waiting for you outside, take you down to Charleville and the train line.”

  “Has Reverend Bean returned?”

  “Not that I’ve heard.”

  “You haven’t bothered to enquire?”

  “The witness was your responsibility, Henry, not mine.”

  “Will you look for him, at least?”

  “I doubt it,” MacIntyre said, shrugging. “Where can we look? Where should we even start? My guess is he took off back to Brisbane—you’re more likely to find him than we are. Either way, I hope you don’t take offense when I say I’d rather not see or hear from either of you again.”

  “This isn’t over.”

  “Oh, I think it is, Mr. Wells. Go on now. Godspeed.”

  Henry collected his bags, started for the door, then paused with his back to the two men. He wanted to say something, to have the last word. Ask the magistrate how he lived with himself, how he was able to sleep at night. There was no point. Nothing he could do or say would change anything, not in a town like this. They all lived with themselves quite comfortably here. They all managed to sleep just fine.

  He arrived back in Brisbane four days later to find the story had beaten him home. Henry picked up a copy of the Post at the train station and stared forlornly at the front page. outback scandal! screamed the headline. city lawyer disgraced in misguided murder trial!

  The reporter was Noone’s man, he realized. Of course he fucking was.

  Chapter 28

  Tommy McBride

  The Ebenezer bells were ringing in the tower as Tommy led his horses across the fields, toward the little white stone church fronting a hamlet of houses and barns. Somewhere he could hear voices, laughter, and the gentle sounds of work. Men handling cattle, laundry being mangled, pots clanging in the kitchen as the evening meal was prepared.

  A door opened in the front wall of the church and a man stepped out. He closed the door carefully behind him and walked to meet Tommy in the clearing, and only now when the bells fell silent did Tommy wonder if they’d been for him, the stranger at their gates. He wasn’t badly dressed, to be fair to him, given the distance he had come, but he had a rifle on his shoulder and a revolver on his belt, and there are some things about a person no clothes can hide. He unhooked the rifle and dropped it in the long grass, lay the revolver alongside.

  “I’m not here to cause any trouble.”

  The man gave no acknowledgment. He halted a few yards away. He was white, wearing a simple beige collarless shirt, tan work trousers, and despite all this grass and the risk of snakes, had open leather sandals on his feet. He clasped his hands in front of him, the left cupping the right wrist, and had the faraway smile of a simpleton, the kind of smile that in Tommy’s experience gets a man killed.

  “Can I help you, friend?” The accent was foreign, Germanic. “Are you in need of directions? Or perhaps shelter and a meal?”

  “I’m looking for someone. Name’s Arthur. I think he works here.”

  He didn’t even pretend to think about it, pursing his lips and shaking his head. “We have no man by this name on our station. I am sorry to disappoint.”

  “Blackfella, old, big gray beard, missing a front tooth . . .”

  The man smirked. “You are describing most of them here.”

  “He wrote me with this address a while back. Arthur—you sure?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “Might be he’s going by a different name now.”

  “What is your business with this man, can I ask?”

  Tommy hesitated. How to put it into words. “We’re family, just abou
t.”

  The stranger considered him a moment. “This letter, may I see it?”

  Tommy had it in his pocket. He handed it over. The man read.

  “You are Tommy?”

  “Maybe, once.” The man frowned at him. Tommy said, “Aye, that’s me.”

  “Do you have any other identification?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Then perhaps you can tell me the name of the farm.”

  “Farm? What farm?”

  “The name of the farm . . . please.”

  It took Tommy a moment to guess his meaning. “Glendale,” he said quietly. “Glendale, it was called.”

  The man bent to collect Tommy’s weapons then looked up grinning. “Come with me, Tommy. Arthur will be very glad that you are here.”

  They walked around the church into a yard, where people paused their work and conversation to get a look at who’d just arrived. Tommy scanned their faces anxiously, didn’t recognize Arthur among them. His stomach was churning. It had been seven years. And despite the letters, the gradual thawing, he didn’t know for sure how this would go. The priest—if that’s what the German was—waved someone over to stable Tommy’s horses, also handing him Tommy’s guns. “We do not allow weapons to be carried here,” he explained, and Tommy nodded vaguely, his attention still elsewhere. From a basket the man offered Tommy a chunk of bread and someone brought him a cup of water, both of which he accepted with thanks.

  “You have traveled far, I think?” the man asked, watching him.

  “You could say that,” Tommy replied.

  Tearing off chunks from the bread, he followed the man’s directions along a path between the buildings and over a patch of grassland to the river in whose bend the mission station was built. Beautiful country down here. Tall grass everywhere, the trees improbably full and green, the air alive with unfamiliar birdsong, plus the usual parakeets. Ahead, the river was sparkling in the late afternoon sun, wide and swollen, with red gums lining its banks and sandy coves dotted here and there . . . and sitting on one of them, hunchbacked and shirtless, his legs crossed in front of him, his fishing pole in his hands, his hair a shaggy mess of black and gray and his beard its identical twin, an old man patiently waiting for a bite.