Tales of the New World: Stories

by Sabina Murray

  It was five days previous that Joey and Wylie ran off. They took their spears and some bread. Baxter said that thieving savages were welcome to the desert, and Eyre had gently reminded him that Wylie and Joey had that small amount of bread coming to them anyway. Eyre! All this misplaced goodwill! Didn’t he know that blacks can’t ration? Of course they’d eat the bread whenever they felt the slightest want of it, or tired of carrying it, or had nothing else to do. And when they appeared on the horizon, Wylie leading, Joey’s face like a collapsed bellows, Baxter was not surprised. He could have put the time in his log even before the trip had started: when the thieving darkies take off, when they come back begging for more food.

  Eyre—how could he be so artless and so accomplished?—was moved by this display of mercenary fawning, as profoundly heartened as he’d been disappointed at their thievery and abandonment. But what’s Baxter to say? It’s not as if Eyre listens to him, and even though he’s not a drunk right now, he’s used to being treated like one: humored and ignored. Life would be simple if Eyre were not so respectable and kind. Baxter is momentarily annoyed with himself for finding kindness and respectability of value. Could valuing these traits kill him? There’s a good chance.

  “Eyre,” says Baxter.

  “Baxter,” says Eyre.

  “Can we go home now?”

  “England’s that way,” says Eyre, pointing farther west.

  “Very funny,” says Baxter.

  “You look tired,” says Eyre.

  “I am tired,” says Baxter. “I’m tired of walking the length of this stinking continent.”

  “I’ll take the first watch,” says Eyre. Although it was Baxter who was slated for this shift, the rest will do him good, might cheer him. What value, though, is cheer? Conversely, how is one supposed to continue without it? Eyre rises from his place by the fire and goes to find the horses that—though hobbled to prevent wide roaming—still manage to get around. They need to, since there’s not much to eat if they don’t find it themselves. And Baxter, despite the night chill, finds himself drifting off, his last thought a wonder of what tomorrow might bring if these savages don’t kill him in his sleep.

  Eyre was searching among the low shrubs in the utter blackness, responding to the occasional crush of twigs that he hoped was caused by horses and not by snakes, when he heard the gunshot. His first thought was that Baxter had awoken and, worried that Eyre was lost, fired a shot to reorient him and bring him home. Eyre listened. No other shot was fired, but finding the horses satisfied in their present location, he decided to return to Baxter to let him know that all was right. But all was not right.

  There’s Wylie zigzagging through the darkness, coughing and weeping, bringing his hands to his head, flinging them out. He searches for Eyre in the murky moonlight, each shrub appearing to him a crouching assailant, each branch shaken by a cold wind moved as if by hostile hands.

  “Mr. Eyre,” he yells, and his call bounces in the void.

  “Here, Wylie,” says Eyre. “Here.” As if here is anywhere.

  And then they stand but ten feet apart.

  “Baxter is dead,” Wylie says. “They killed him.”

  “No,” says Eyre. How could one think this of Joey and Yarry? “No one has killed Baxter.” But in saying the falsehood, he has accepted the truth.

  What’s to be done? Eyre takes stock of his diminished supplies, notes the disappearance of firearms, the only one left defective: there’s a cartridge lodged in there somewhere. He needs this rifle if he is going to survive. By the fire, he cleans the piece, looking at Wylie, thinking, Can I trust you? And Wylie thinking back at him, You don’t really have a choice. And there’s Baxter, poor soul, wrapped in a blanket, since you can’t bury people in solid rock.

  Wonder. Wonder.

  What if. What if.

  Boom!

  That’s the gun going off, since there was a little gunpowder nestled around the stuck cartridge, just enough to get it going. That boom nearly took off a part of Eyre’s skull, nearly killed him, nearly left Wylie in the middle of the desert. You can picture it: Eyre, his legs still folded up from sitting, his arms flung out, his skull leaking blood onto the thirsty rock. There should be a bird cawing into the wilderness, this call standing in for a departing soul, although there are no crows here, and therefore no caws. Perhaps we should consider the cry of a cockatoo? “In the wake of that fatefully expelled bullet, naught was heard but the cry of a cockatoo.” Cockatoos probably squawk—although some speak. “In the wake of that fatefully expelled bullet, a cockatoo was heard to utter, ‘There goes Eyre’s soul. There goes Eyre’s soul.’”

  As you ponder all this, Wylie and the horses wait patiently, wonder, what now? And what if it ended there? Because it has to end with Eyre: what could be less noteworthy than an aborigine in the desert? Would this end satisfy the needs of history?

  Maybe.

  Haven’t you heard of Burke and Wills? The two, despite Burke’s leadership, made it from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria, but didn’t make it back. The rescue party hung around in the middle of nowhere (Burke and Wills having traveled on to the edge of nowhere), and then left a few hours before Burke and Wills showed up to deliver a few expletives (undocumented), to blunder hopelessly (documented) up and down Cooper’s Creek, wasting supplies, time, and energy, to expire despite the gifts of food from the aborigines who were all about them and thriving. And a few years later we have Scott freezing to death on his way back from the South Pole—shouldn’t it be enough to reach a place?—who held on proudly to the bitter end and never lost his spirit, although, given the circumstances, he really should have. Scott and Burke and Wills are all part of history, and history finds them of more interest—seats them up close to the host at Perpetuity’s table, with Eyre placed further down, almost invisible.

  Boom!

  Well, that bullet really wakes Eyre up. “Gun’s working,” he says to Wylie.

  And Wylie nods.

  Get to your feet, Eyre. You’ve a long way to go yet, and Baxter doesn’t need you fawning over his remains. As far as Wylie’s concerned, it’s a waste of a blanket, although he does stand in respectful silence as you tug the blanket to cover Baxter’s feet, revealing his face, and then tug the blanket to cover the face, revealing his feet. And then repeat this. Twice.

  Guilt. Responsibility. Eyre makes a mental note to never fail those who put their trust in him, to not fall victim to his innocence—which is of no value—at the expense of those loyal to him. “That was bad of Joey,” says Eyre, “to shoot Baxter.”

  From the patience on Wylie’s face, Eyre knows the boy is concerned about him. There are some things Wylie doesn’t understand, like valor, but there are other things that Wylie knows better. Despite native simplicity, an aborigine can get just as crazy as an Englishman, crazier if you lock him up. Wylie thinks Eyre’s mind is slipping. That’s what Eyre sees on Wylie’s face.

  “Baxter’s all right now,” says Wylie.

  “Back with his people,” says Eyre, and rises to his feet. He hopes this notion of being back with one’s people is something that Wylie believes in, because it might be: the sentiment seems to incline toward the native. And Eyre sincerely hopes in this possibility of belief since he does not hold faith in any such thing. He knows that Baxter is gone, his juices destined to evaporate, the blanket destined to crumble, the bones there to be cleaned by predators, and then sand, and then carried off by the unknown or just left with no witness.

  Struggle on, Wylie. Struggle on, Eyre. Get a move on.

  Eyre pauses and puts his cracked hands on the knees of his torn pants. He turns a weary head and looks out of his spot on the desert. Does he suspect his future in Jamaica? His fall from grace? Does he imagine that he will be singled out as a killer of blacks? An entitled squire and racist monster? Could he ever guess that famous men will attack him, and famous men will champion his cause, that even after all the charges have been dropped he will be unemployable? That after years
of courting History, Eyre will be desperate to escape her attention? Maybe he does guess at this, because he’s sitting down again, exhausted. Eyre thinks he’s dying, but just as that bullet missed its mark, so will this moment pass.

  Wylie, finding himself ahead, circles back. He extends his hand and Eyre grasps it. There’s a moment here. Wylie is pulling Eyre up and Eyre is feeling him do it, and there’s warmth in Wylie’s hand and generosity in his face and patience. Eyre knows that Wylie will never desert him. Eyre knows that Wylie is good. For one moment Eyre feels his heart swell and a false strength take hold of his bones and muscles, because he loves Wylie, this savage, this kind boy.

  “Wylie,” says Eyre, “you have saved me.”

  And Wylie yet again finds this unremarkable.

  V. The Mississippi

  Not far to go is not close enough. Eyre has been wandering as though in a dream—a very bad one—for several weeks, so when he first sights the boats in the harbor, he thinks them to be an illusion. Why not? Just a short half hour ago he had a thought that the landscape had dreamed him up, and when it thought better (the landscape, thinking), he would vanish from it. He tried to explain this phenomenon to Wylie, who gave him that frank look—a white man would have shaken his head nervously—to let Eyre know that the thought was, well, unhinged. So Eyre looks out at the boats, unsure of how to approach the subject, or figment, with Wylie. But there is no need for such concern.

  “Food!” says Wylie. “Food!”

  And Wylie leaps around, briefly forgetting that such expressions of joy—joy itself, perhaps—is a wasting of valuable resources.

  The boats are small, rowing boats, and Eyre wonders what would bring such boaters to the curbstone of the known to entertain themselves in such a frivolous way. But there they are, rowing to and fro, maybe six of them, in the broiling sun, and not an umbrella to be seen.

  “Such small boats,” says Eyre.

  “For the big fish,” says Wylie. “You know, the big fish!” And he flings his arms open to indicate that the size of such a fish is beyond his illustration.

  “You mean a whale?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” says Wylie.

  So they’re whalers, and that would make sense, as it would make sense for Eyre to leave his ponderings and make some sense as well. Eyre does his best to shake off his unbecoming hallucinatory demeanor, which has actually been very useful—a cradle to rock permanent dementia to sleep—in exchange for an English fortitude.

  Soon Eyre, his English fortitude, and Wylie are down on the beach shaking hands with a Captain Rossiter, who shakes back, accompanied by his gift of salvation. The Mississippi, which slides into view at the promontory, is indeed a whaler, and the rowboats deployed earlier were not involved in sporty leisure, but rather industry. Twelve days Eyre and Wylie spend among these men, mostly French, although Rossiter is English, eating and sleeping with a roof above, which, Eyre at least, will choose over earth beneath. The Mississippi, that small embassy of Europe, rolls beneath him, for all is progress in the Western world, all is movement, and isn’t that what Eyre too is about: moving across this great, still continent, creating a necessary disturbance?

  Finish up that soup quickly, Eyre. Put down the spoon! You’re not done yet.

  Eyre and Wylie recover quickly and, newly outfitted, determine to finish off their journey. The horses too, rested and watered, are eager to put an end to things, aided by the magical gift of horseshoes fashioned from harpoons.

  Eyre should have known from the rain that he and Wylie were reentering the English side of things. After struggling through some of the driest terrain in existence, he and Wylie now travel ankle-deep in water, with so much precipitation that one wonders if it is worth remarking where the water has collected (about one’s ankles), and where it is in the process of collecting (everywhere else). All the sound is muted and the thousands of droplets striking all around create a uniform cacophony. Surely, Eyre thinks, each sound of each droplet must be as individual as the structures of snowflakes. But this wall of sound can also be one sound—or at least one composition. This is how Eyre occupies himself as he follows Wylie, who is now always two steps ahead.

  “Wylie,” shouts Eyre, “where are we?”

  Wylie shrugs. “I know where I’m going,” he says, which is surely more relevant.

  Later, as they descend the Stirling Range and see Albany before them—a perverse and suspect diorama—Eyre will fall to his knees, as close to complete collapse as he’s ever been on this journey. Wylie, resting his hand on Eyre’s shoulder, will say, “Things are good now.”

  And, to some extent, he’ll be correct.

  Eyre and Wylie stand in the sheeting rain at the edge of water that has already burst its banks. They watch as things speed past on the river’s back: branches, whole trees, a steer with its legs in the air that is at least a harbinger of civilization.

  Normally there would be a few people about—farmers, settlers, idiots—but the weather has driven everyone indoors. It’s still that reliable trio: Eyre, Wylie, the elements. And then, from across the river, a human voice, calling out. Listen! No. Yes. It’s gone. But there it is again: definitely a human voice, someone hailing them. Wylie’s face goes from its usual passivity to joyful wonder. Through the scrim of rain, Eyre can make out the man on the opposite bank—a native—waving his arms enthusiastically. He can hear the choking happiness in the man’s voice, sent out in wave after wave of welcome. Wylie turns to Eyre, extending his arm to assist—are they really going to ford this river?—and Wylie says, “My brother.”

  Cross the river, Eyre, please. It’s been so long—over a year since you left Adelaide with the crowd cheering you on. And after all that hardship, what’s a river? Just one last thing: a job worth starting is worth finishing. Is that your adage? Well, if it wasn’t before, it should be now.

  VI. His Twilight

  To him, this is a fine day for fishing because the house is filling up with people—his daughter, his sons, in-laws, grandchildren—whom he prefers from a distance. He moves across the shorn grass, lately arena for the spectacle of tennis. The house sits broad where it has sat for many years. The wind tugs at his greenheart rod (newly outfitted with a click-check brass reel) making progress, as he juggles tackle box, lunch kit, bucket, less swift than he’d wish it. Wylie would have indulged himself only his two hands. Wylie. Where is he now? What is he now? A variety of ether?

  Eyre’s eighty-four years, an extra burden, slow him. As does the ridiculous fence and the ladder-like steps straddling it that he must also straddle. His trousers grip him as he maneuvers, but he drops only the bucket. Still, the field rolls out in front of him, embroidered over with cow pats and prickle plants, and after (and if ) he manages that, only then the peace of the riverbank, its gin-clear waters, and fish swimming it. Eyre recovers his bucket. He recovers his breath. He looks across and sees, through shoulder-to-shoulder trees, the flash of light that is reflecting water. A moment here, he thinks, a moment here to ponder his final steps, to gather strength. To convince himself this final distance is worth its winning.

  He is in Tavistock, Devonshire.

  The year is 1901.

  He has been retired for twenty-seven years, too long unemployed. Unemployable. His thoughts swarm briefly and settle, like flies on a cow pat.

  “I’d like to be of assistance, if I may.”

  Who has said that? Eyre turns to see a young man standing backlit by low sun. Who is it? By the stance, casual, Eyre assumes it’s someone he knows or someone who belongs there, although no servant would be so jaunty in his posture.

  “Grandfather?”

  John, Eyre’s grandson, has ferreted him out. The previous evening, the boy had brought up Carlyle at the dinner table. Carlyle! Dead and buried, along with all the troubles, buried at least at Eyre’s dinner table where polite conversation and general delicacy have left such provocative subjects unexplored for many, many years. John wanted to know, what did Eyre think of Carlyle�
�s notions of heroes and great men? Eyre had deflected the question with a tepid response about Carlyle being a forceful sort of gentleman. And influence on John Stuart Mill, although they later disagreed.

  “What makes you think I need assistance?” says Eyre.

  “You dropped your bucket.”

  “The wind and this gate have made it all—” says Eyre, handing over his bucket and lunch kit, but keeping his tackle box and rod.

  “The gate exists because the cows kept eating all the flowers.”

  The cows, chewing, chewing, chewing, support this.

  “Why,” says Eyre, with an old man’s scowl, “have you followed me?”

  “I am your grandson,” says John.

  To which Eyre repeats his question. Which is disingenuous, because Eyre knows what the boy wants. “You, John, like the others, ask all the wrong questions. You ask about Carlyle and the Eyre Defense Committee. You ask about Mill and his Jamaica Committee—formed to convict me, and not for the wrongs done by me, but for all the victimized negroes in all the colonies. I put down a rebellion. The negro Gordon was no smiling victim. He was sharp as a tack. He could have wiped out all the settlers, if not handled swiftly. His training was as a preacher. People followed him, and his followers killed twenty-four civilians. I authorized his hanging, yes, I did, and for that was prosecuted as a murderer.”

  “You yourself were nearly hanged,” says the grandson.