Master of My Fate

by Sienna Brown

  ‘Warden must be wake now. Him soon come, must get ready,’ she said.

  Then she lifted me head up, made me look her in the eyes. ‘Promise me,’ she said. ‘Promise me, William. If dem let the children come, don’t let dem near the front. Promise me. No matter what. No matter what. If me see dem, me going break. And there is nuttin’ on this earth going let backra break me.’

  ‘Me promise, Stella. Me promise.’

  She got up on her knees, held her hands together. Held them high, closed her eyes and started to pray. Was the first time I noticed she trembling and her shirt wet from sweat. Then she lifted up her voice, called out, her voice bouncing round the gaol cell walls.

  ‘Lawd, give me strength. Give me strength. The strength you always give me before. Come stand by me. Stand by me in this time of need, like you promise you going do.’ Then she made me get on me knees too. Grabbed at me hands, put them together.

  ‘Pray for me, William,’ she said. ‘Pray for me every day.’

  ‘Me praying. Me praying now,’ and the tears started to flood me eyes.

  ‘Pray me going to a better place,’ twisting and turning her hands, not seeing she twisted and turned mine too. ‘A place without chains, without them chains wrapped round me sore and tired heart.’

  ‘Freedom going be yours,’ was all I could muster, wishing for it to be true.

  ‘And when the time come, stand somewhere close.’ She hugged me up. ‘Somewhere plenty close. Somewhere me can look into you eyes. And you must look back into mine. But you must never waver, no matter what. You hear me, William?’ holding me face in her hands, the tears falling down both our faces. ‘You must not waver. No matter what backra do to me. You is me first born, the only thing that is truly mine, and me want you to be the last living thing me see on this earth.’

  ‘Me will, Mama. Me will.’

  Then we both turned silent as the rooster crowed again. Heard the footsteps of the warden. Listened as the soldiers got closer and closer marching towards the cell. Stella let go of me hands, wiped her tears with her skirt, turned away, no longer looked at me. Set up a barrier between us like I was no longer there.

  The warden stood outside the cell. Said not a word, just opened the iron bars and motioned for me to get out. I took one last look. Saw how Stella lifted her head with pride. How she tried to control the wild fear screaming from her eyes, before I charged out the cell and ran fast. Faster, running wild through the streets till I came to know there was nowhere to go. Is only then I remembered it was the first time in long, long time I called her Mama.

  My Place

  I start by clearing one end of the field, the ground where I plan to put up a shack, a house, a home. Dig up rocks, move them to form a boundary. Cut down small shrubs, roots, throw them into a pile, a pile that gets bigger and bigger. By late afternoon me able to lay out the shape and size of it, place wooden logs I spent many weeks cutting down and collecting. Lay them in a broad square, divide the square into four, deciding where to put the windows, doors, before nailing together a three-by-six shell of a doorway, two uprights with a beam between them and put me feet down in the middle of it.

  I been working from just before dawn. Hurrying to lay things out before the sun dip and hide himself away. Leave the sky to turn black, fill up with pinpricks of light. Been a day of work. A day of sweat. Work done with me own gnarled hands, broad back, strong arms. Work done, for me alone. A good working day, and I feel a good tired.

  In the quiet of the evening, I light the fire, put on the billy to boil, sit on me favourite stump to wait, to listen, to look out cross the paddock, pass the wooden fence and further. The silver leaves shimmering in the distance, they are ironbark, and those hippity, hoppy brown-skin animals nibbling grass close by, they are roos. The big bats circling overhead are flying foxes. Red ones, and they heading south, looking for a nightly feed. Only sadness is that every evening when I sit for tea, the trees, the bats, the roos also keep whispering this land is not the one me born into.

  When I first got here, everywhere I looked was a wild terrain, made up of bush and bramble and tall, thin swaying eucalyptus. A land untouched by any hand I knew. Was like a marker of a new life, and it didn’t take long before I started to shape and bend it. Noticed the ins and outs of it, bowed down to what it had to offer.

  I no longer work for the kind master and mistress. Fever took me for nearly a week, but I got better. Eventually left them, soon after I got me conditional pardon. They was sorry to see me go. Found plenty work in Goulburn, though, doing anything that was asked of me, since many a family abandoned the town, joined in the rush hoping to find gold. When I saved enough, I went to visit Archie Wilson, a government man, the one in charge of selling land.

  I picked this place, me tiny plot of land, just by looking at a map laid out on Archie Wilson’s table. He didn’t think I could read a map. Didn’t know I could see the curving blue line meant a river running through it, giving plenty water to slake the thirst of human, beast and crop alike. See that the river was running through a land thick with forest, with rocks in need of clearing, giving me wood and stone for the building of things. For the making of a home, a place to rest me far-travelling bones. And I sensed he was going to try sell me a barren place that had no life to it. So I pretended I was going to use luck to show the way. I closed me eyes, put me finger down, plonking right in the middle of it.

  ‘Parcel 39,’ Archie Wilson said. ‘The county of Argyle, in the southern end. You don’t want that. It’s one of the “unsettled” parcels,’ he told me.

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Not many people live around there.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Had enough of people round me.’

  ‘It will take a good many days travel to get there. And the nearest town, let me see, is at least half a day’s ride away,’ Wilson said, shaking him head, trying to make me play the little game again. Guide me finger to a different place, once he realised I picked a juicy plot and a wealthier customer might pay much more for it. ‘Cost you ten pounds for grazing rights, if you planning on bringing in cattle.’

  I hadn’t thought that far, but when him said it, cattle sounded like a good idea.

  ‘What route must I take to get there?’ I asked.

  ‘Ahh …’ him said, as he pulled out another map with a twinkle in him eye, and I could see him trying to talk me out of buying again. ‘The plot isn’t close to other plots. It’s way out along the Great South Road,’ and I looked in close following his finger along a track. ‘First, you keep going as far as you can, about twenty miles. Then you keep your eyes open, look for a signpost saying Mullins Creek.’ And he wrote it down and I said it many times to help me remember.

  ‘Go down a ways, pass the ravine. See here is the ravine,’ pointing to a few ragged lines on either side the track him finger was following. ‘Then take the first track you come to, veering off to the left. You’ll know if you’ve taken the right one, if after a few miles you see a broken windmill painted red.’

  ‘Red? Blood-red?’

  Him nodded. ‘Yes, red. Keep going until you come to the plot with a marker on it saying 39.’

  What if Wilson was bluffing? What if there is no land, no farms, no homesteads, nothing but bush out along a dusty road?

  I opened up a leather pouch I kept hidden under me shirt and laid out the silver coins I been saving. Threw the coins down on top of the map, and they landed smack right in the middle of me plot of land. Too late to turn back.

  A few days later, just before dawn, I was off, leaving the town of Goulburn behind, sitting high up in front of a wooden cart, packed down with me meagre belongings, pulled by two old horses, nags I bargained for in the Sunday market. Paid a small price since nobody else wanted them. Spent time talking kindly to them, gave them a good feed and a strong brushing, just like how James Smith showed me to do. Still a bit frail, but I know how to make them better and the cart not so heavy so everything going be all right.

&nb
sp; It took us a whole day to travel halfway along the Great South Road, till was too dark to see, so I set up camp, bedded down for the night. Slept fitfully with the musket by me side. Woke to the sound of magpies warbling, feeding them squawking young. Drank tea and watched as the night sky started to wane and the sun lifted himself up to start another day.

  Hitching up the horses, I set out early, eager to see if I gambled on a seller honest and true, or if Archie Wilson going turn out to be a cheating, lying one. The second day dragged on and I started to see less and less homesteads, made me start to worry and fret. Started to talk to the horses as they clopped along, except after a while even the talking and the clopping no longer soothed me.

  In the fading light, I finally saw a signpost. Reined the horses in. Jumped down to see if the words matched the words on the paper Wilson gave me. Mullins Creek. At last!

  The third day me spirits lifted even higher when I passed the ravine Wilson told me bout, came to a track veering off to the left. Travelled along it, scouring the landscape from me wooden perch for any sign of red. Had to stop a few times to tie down me belongings that got loose and rattled round in the cart as I creaked along on what turned into a dusty dirt trail, scarcely even a bullock track, a track meant to be a road.

  Me spirits were low when in the distance I saw at long last the abandoned homestead. And there, standing a little way away, just like Wilson said, the windmill came into view, broken down and beaten by the weather, but still with its slash of red paint.

  I stirred up the horses even though, like me, them was very tired and in need of resting.

  ‘Just a little more, me beauties,’ I cooed to them. ‘Just a little further till we reach our new home.’

  Home! A word most dear. A word I been afraid to use, except when it pushed itself into me mind. Came to the surface unbidden.

  Tired, dusty and thirsty, we came round a bend, and in the last burst of sunshine I saw the signpost I been praying for. A signpost I been waiting me whole life to see. There, spread out before me was plot 39. The land that was mine, the land I owned. No longer squiggly lines on a map, but living, breathing lines, holding in a land filled with trees, rocks, a river and wildflowers I would later discover flourishing after a spring downpour. I pulled on the reins of the horses to stop, jumped down from the cart. I wanted to walk the rest of the way, to cross the boundary on me own two feet. And when I walked cross that boundary line, I dropped to me knees, sent a silent prayer of thanks to all those who had helped me to survive to see that day.

  Archie Wilson asked me, ‘So what name will you give to your parcel of land?’

  And the words flew out of me mouth before I could stop them. ‘Rock Pleasant.’

  ‘That’s a fine name,’ him said. ‘Mean something to you, does it?’

  ‘Too long a story,’ I told him. ‘But yes, it mean a lot.’

  ‘A good place?’

  ‘A good and terrible place,’ I said, made Wilson confused.

  ‘Why would you want to remember a terrible place?’ him asked.

  I couldn’t answer him then, but kneeling in the dirt on me own parcel of land, I knew why. Rock Pleasant will honour all the people I was forced to leave behind. All the people who crossed my path and headed in a different direction.

  Sammy and Eliza, Melon, Winnie, Josephine, little Rose. What of them? Are they living or dead? Grown stooped, gnarled and knotted like me? I will never know. Can’t travel to that side of the world, backra won’t let me. Is what is written on the piece of paper that have the words Conditional Pardon written on it. But with this paper, it mean no man can put me in chains, tell me to work, to run when they call me, force me to obey. Is a bittersweet freedom, because backra take away the sweetest, kindest freedom of all. A return to loved ones, to the land that gave birth to me, and still running hot through me veins.

  My island! Jamaica! How it must be changed.

  Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I lay awake trying to picture what it would be like if I suddenly get transported back. Would me old eyes return as well? Be able to see the brightest of colours? Flowers the blackest red? The yellow and green of the canefield them swaying, rustled by a gentle breeze. But they is only memories and memories always seem richer and brighter and greener than they really is. So I scatter those old memories to the wind. Watch as they settle down into the earth, bury them deep, let them give rise to new memories. Memories coming out from this earth, this land, and flavour them with me own sweetness.

  A few times I have taken the long ride back into Mullins Creek, a small shanty town of a place, much smaller than Goulburn, but me able to get supplies there. The shopkeepers think me mad, buying way out here in the bush, ‘where the savage natives live’. But me not afraid of them. Why should I be? After all, we share the same skin. When I first arrived, laden down with the slim pickings of me belongings, several of them came snooping round. Sat at the edge of the field, watched me every move as I hammered in the wooden sign that said ‘Welcome’. A sign perhaps they couldn’t read, or maybe they didn’t believe. It took them a long while before they came closer. Soon they came right up, looking to exchange some of them possessions for some of mine, till they saw I was just as poor.

  One day one of them, an old half-blind man, built a humpy under the patoo tree beside the track going up to me gate. I figured he and that patoo going get along fine, be good protection. It turned out to be the case.

  When I learnt to speak a little bit of their language, I found out the land Archie Wilson sold me was where the old fella came from. Got forced away long before I arrived and the tribe decided to move on without him. He told me he wanted to die on the land he was born on. Was a wish I truly understood.

  A year has gone by since I first crossed the boundary line of plot 39. The fields cleared. The house almost finished. Me no longer a convict, no longer a slave. Have time to sit, to listen as the noisy cockatoos settle into sleep, leaving it quiet enough for me to hear the water bubbling in the billycan and the frogs way down at the river as they start up them night-time croaking. Enjoy the stillness, waiting for the patoo to wake up, start hooting, calling to him mate. For the old fella to come silently out of the bush for him nightly visit, to sing, sometimes dance, drink rum and share a meal with me, in a land I come to call home. Is a word I never thought would be mine, to use, to taste the joy of it.

  And sometimes, after I light up the pipe I fashion from clay, like the one I made in me old life inside the stone walls of Hyde Park Barracks, I reach back in me mind to that little child laying under the breadfruit tree and tell that child the miracle has happened. That even though his life was full up with rock, with stones, with weeds, he becomes free like William the Second, living in a world with a sky that is mostly blue and mostly cloudless.

  Acknowledgements

  We all come into the world with a little bit of luck, parcelled out to help us along our way. My luck takes the form of wonderful people appearing in my life to mentor and support me when I need it most.

  Barry Higman has been there throughout the long research and writing process with his encouragement, wisdom and friendship, and generously gave of his erudite knowledge about plantation life in Jamaica.

  The warm-hearted Anne Hickling-Hudson provided advice about the rhythm and sound of the Jamaican dialect.

  The delightful Pamela Hewitt, of Emend Editing, encouraged me to play with the language and to enhance the uniqueness of William’s voice.

  When I was a student at the Faber Writing Academy, Kathryn Heyman, a brilliant teacher, gave much-needed direction in the early stages of this novel and showed me ‘how deep the rabbit hole goes’ when it comes to the craft of writing. As part of the Australian Writers Mentoring Program, she continued to provide astute feedback to help turn my clutch of chapters into a manuscript.

  Sydney Living Museums (SLM) is where it all started. It was there that I discovered West Indians listed on the convict indent database at the heritage-listed Hyde Park Barracks. I
received warm encouragement from my colleagues, along with an invaluable subsidy from SLM’s management committee to help me participate in the Novel Writing course at the Faber Writing Academy.

  The Royal Australian Historical Society awarded me a grant to undertake research into the transportation of West Indian convicts to the colony of NSW in the 1800s.

  Helen and Gary Ghent for their generosity in opening up their beautiful home on the Greek island of Symi for three months, where I completed the second draft of the manuscript.

  Thanks to the Penguin Random House Australia team: the indomitable Lex Hirst, commissioning editor, whose total belief and enthusiasm for the novel helped steer me through the acquisition and contractual process, then provided inspiration in structurally revamping the plot and deepening the characters into a far more dramatic story. The meticulous Elena Gomez, deputy managing editor and copyeditor, who was always respectful of the work, making edits, comments and suggestions with humour and insight. The steadfast and sanguine Meredith Curnow, publisher of Vintage Australia, who took on a first-time author with enthusiasm and forethought.

  Finally, to MG, my dear friends, my writing buddies and readers – thanks so very much for being there. And a big thanks to my loving family, who have supported me throughout, enduring all the highs and lows of wrangling words into sentences, paragraphs and chapters until they have at long last been chiselled into a novel.

  Author Note

  Master of My Fate began as a research project. The original intention was to merely collate information about the lives of the West Indian convicts I had discovered on the Hyde Park Barracks database so that those following behind would have a more accurate knowledge of the period. But when I started looking into why those convicts had been transported, I noticed next to one of the names, William Buchanan, the word ‘rebellion’ listed as his crime. I was curious to learn more, and my research pulled me deeper into the history of slavery and plantation life in Jamaica, but also his adventures as a bushranger, which I discovered in the newspaper articles written about his exploits.