by Darry Fraser
He recognised her, reached for her to help him sit. ‘Lily, you’re a sight for me eyes.’
‘Judah,’ she whispered urgently, her arm around his shoulders. ‘Can you crawl? Can you turn over? We must get this blood stopped. I must find where you’re bleeding.’
‘Leave me, love. Get Zeke.’
‘Let me strap it, wherever it is. I can—’
‘Get Zeke.’ He collapsed over her and then she saw it. A big bladed knife had partially dislodged from his side, and blood flowed freely out of the wound.
She knew not to pull it out—it could cause a rush of blood, worse than what was pouring out already. She had to stop it, but his weight was on her … She tried to move. Slipped again. She pushed him as gently as she could until he rolled off her lap, his face down on the floor. She turned his head. As long as he still lived, he’d at least be able to breathe.
Bed sheet bed sheet. There wasn’t one. Towel. Nothing. Curtain. Curtain! She scrambled to her feet, away from the creeping pool of blood, and ripped it down from over his makeshift window. A faded gingham check. She shook out the dust. Poor Anne, his dear wife, had probably toiled over the embroidery on it.
She bunched it, packed it into his side. The knife dislodged completely and she cried aloud while jamming the fabric with as much pressure as she dared. With her free hand, she groped under him, undoing the knot of his soft leather belt. She tugged it off him and rolled it over the bandage, fumbling to get it back under his body to tie it off tight.
Get Zeke. She couldn’t do any more for Judah here. Get Zeke.
There was nothing else to pack the wound. His face was grey, his eyes closed. She lurched to her feet, careful not to slip in the pool of his blood that seemed to follow up her dress then drip from her hem.
Dear God. Ezekiel’s place was five miles by road, an hour. If she crossed country, maybe a half-hour drive. Rough, though. Hard with horse and cart. But the time she’d waste unharnessing Cricket, and riding bareback …
Run. That would be quicker.
What was she thinking? She’d have a heart attack.
Unharness the horse and ride. Ride for Ezekiel’s.
She bent and swiped hair from his face. ‘Judah, I’m going to get Ezekiel. You be alive when I get back, you hear me?’
Leave me, love, he’d said.
She flew out the door, flew to the horse and cart. She secured the reins more tightly on the rails to hold a now skittish Cricket. Wrangling with the over girth, she loosened it and slipped the poles out of the brace and moved the worried horse out of the trappings. Cricket would be nervous, able to smell Jude’s blood on her clothes, able to feel her fear. She patted him, hoped to soothe him. She talked to him, walked him to Jude’s house-fence rails and climbed up, one hand still gripping the reins. She bunched both hands in his mane and hauled herself over his back.
Oh, my Lord, I haven’t done this since I was a girl.
When she squeezed her knees, pulling her bloodied skirt out of the way, and dug her heels into Cricket’s sides, he leapt into a gallop, and across the yellow grassy fields they raced.
Seventeen
Elsa sniffed and dabbed at her nose with the back of her wrist. A light mist was falling and when she looked up, she could only see a faint patch of blue as the clouds rolled along.
Rosie clambered down from the driver’s seat, handing the reins over to her sister. ‘Where in God’s name are we?’
They’d pulled up at the crest of a short incline and in front of them was a track, wider than normal. ‘I think we’ve just shot out onto the Mt Gambier road.’ Elsa looked left and right, and as far as she could see in either direction, the road appeared to be well used. Peppin had marched resolutely towards a clearing from the rough track they’d been on all day and tugged them up onto a narrow but well-used road.
‘Oh good. So, which way?’ Rosie was brushing herself down.
Elsa wondered about how safe Rosie’d be if she was on her own—she had no sense of direction at all. ‘Left. We can go on a little further and then get off the road again for the night.’
Her sister groaned. ‘Another night? How much further to Casterton?’
‘I’ve no way of knowing that, and I’m certainly not going to attempt driving in the dark.’ Elsa slid across the seat. ‘Can’t be far. Come on, get back up. We need to go and find a good place. Hurry up.’
Disgruntled, Rosie snorted as she climbed into the passenger’s seat. ‘Bossy. Perhaps you should be Mrs Conroy and I’ll be Miss Myrtle.’
Elsa flicked her a wry glance. ‘It’d never work.’ She felt Rosie’s elbow dig her in the ribs and she laughed. ‘Gee-up, Peppin,’ she said, and they lurched forward at a trot.
The mist was clearing, the day bright in the afternoon sun. Elsa settled in. This road was a far more comfortable drive, and their journey, at least so far as Casterton, was nearly at an end.
Elsa’s stomach rumbled as she slid between the thin mattress on the ground and a light cotton cover. A good drink of water hadn’t held the rumbles off for long, and the fruit and cheese from the pub in Penola that they’d shared had only taken off the edge of her hunger. Now that darkness had descended again, Rosie was sighing deeply, almost every second breath, but at last seemed to finally relax beside her.
Then she startled Elsa. ‘I’ll say this much, and only this much,’ Rosie began. ‘I’ve thought long and hard, since the other night, about telling you.’ Her voice was low and firm.
Elsa waited, the silence growing. She felt she knew exactly what her sister was about to say. It would be to answer her question—what other means?
‘When I realised I couldn’t have children, it felt very bleak, Elsa.’
There was another silence. Elsa had never thought of not being able to have children, just that, even if she did want to, perhaps she was getting too old for someone decent to come along and want to marry her. It must feel bleak, because her sister had experienced it to say so.
Rosie went on. ‘I’ve heard it said—oh, it doesn’t matter where—that some women can go quite mad if they don’t have a child.’
Good gracious me … Elsa put a hand to her chest.
‘And I certainly didn’t want to go mad. Even though I might now appear to be,’ she said, a droll note in her voice. ‘I had read the newspapers—you’ll be surprised to hear of more than just suffragist interests—about some stories from Melbourne and from Sydney. From Adelaide, too, about poor women, or about fallen women who have babies they shouldn’t have had, or who’d had them and couldn’t afford to keep them. So they sell them.’
Elsa sucked in a breath. ‘That’s terrible.’
‘Is it? To try to save a child’s life, or to try to save your own?’ Rosie took a breath. ‘If they sell an unwanted child, or one they can’t afford, they both live for a little longer. Or that’s what I thought was the reason for the practice.’
Elsa could barely imagine where this was going.
‘At one stage I wanted a child so badly I was staring at just about every newborn in their mother’s arms, or in their carriage, in the main street of Robe. And I was feeling very strange. I didn’t dare reach out to touch the infants for fear I’d snatch one up and run away with it.’
Elsa groped for her sister’s hand, but it wasn’t within reach. ‘Did you have a madness of some sort, after all?’
‘Perhaps. The idea of it was certainly driving me mad.’ She sniffed. ‘I told Frank as much, and all he said to me was that there was naught to be done if my body would not take up his—seed, and that I was clearly defective. That if I couldn’t be trusted in public with the children who belonged to others then I should stay behind closed doors.’
‘Oh, dear God, Rosie,’ Elsa cried. ‘That awful man.’
Rosie took in a deep breath. ‘So I showed Frank the newspaper articles, said to him that I should like to buy one of these poor babies. They get sold off to baby farmers, you see, terrible people who, if you’re the unfortunate woman
, take your money on the promise of looking after the infant until you can buy it back and be able to support it. When it becomes clear their real mother is either no longer fit or can’t be found, they sell the babies on. Or worse.’
‘Or worse what?’
‘Do you remember that terrible case reported in Sydney a few years back? The man’s name was Makin. His wife was Sarah. He was hanged for murdering the babies.’
Elsa turned on her side to face her sister. ‘Rosie, that’s a horrible story.’
‘It’s true, and baby farming still goes on.’ Rosie sucked in a deep breath. ‘I had it in mind to try to buy one of these babies. Maybe from Adelaide, or somewhere close by.’ She paused. ‘Of course Frank wouldn’t have it. Of course not.’
Elsa heard Rosie’s voice drift above them into the night sky. Why had she not known this about her sister? And Frank. ‘Surely if he knew you couldn’t have your own—’
‘He said that it would bring shame on him to suddenly have his wife appear with a baby that was clearly not his.’ Then she huffed. ‘Never mind about me,’ she said as an aside. ‘He said that the child would most likely be diseased and tainted with its slatternly birthmother’s blood.’
So shocked, Elsa had nothing to say. There was no need to condemn Frank to Rosie; he’d already done that himself. She tried again to find her sister’s hand and felt Rosie’s fingers close over hers.
‘So I felt like I could either descend into my madness, or try to make it so that I no longer cared.’ Rosie squeezed Elsa’s fingers and then let them go. ‘I don’t know how well I succeeded in not going mad, because here I am running away with nary a penny to my name. But I know I no longer care for Frank.’
‘You’re not mad,’ Elsa said quietly. Subdued, she asked, ‘Are there many babies, do you think, unwanted?’
‘Oh yes. Many. And it makes me very sad.’
It made Elsa sad, too, and the threat of tears felt like a huge wave rolling through her, but Rosie had endured it. Poor Rosie would not want her pity. Well, it wasn’t pity—it was empathy; still, it wouldn’t help to cry. Those poor children; those poor women.
‘Are there baby farmers everywhere?’ Elsa asked.
‘Probably. There are, I’ve heard, some ladies who look after unfortunate women, to try and help them keep their babies if they can. They house them, find them meaningful work but they too are frowned upon. They have to take their work underground, so to speak.’
Elsa suddenly wondered why on earth she had decided to leave the sanctuary of the farm and go in search of her dead brother’s belongings. The outside world seemed a dark place. Either that or she had been well sheltered from some of its horrors.
‘You know a lot about it, Rosie.’
‘I do; I made it my business, but Frank refused to budge,’ she said. ‘He would not have it, would not abide any more talk about it. A child of his own, or none at all, and I was to accept his position on that and think of his standing in society. That was, for me, the last straw.’
Lardy-ball, Elsa seethed.
Rosie caught her breath. ‘But now I must try and forget all of that and get a good night’s sleep. I feel quite out of sorts, dear Elsa.’ Abruptly, she turned away, and stifled a sob.
Poor Rosie—
But what had she said? Dear Elsa. Not even dear little sister. Rosie had called her dear Elsa.
The next morning, Rosie was still out of sorts, but in a different way. ‘I thought you said it can’t be far,’ she said, sounding annoyed. She shuffled on the seat alongside Elsa, one hand holding the outside rail. There was no mention of last night’s revelations.
Elsa looked across. ‘It can’t be far,’ she reiterated, then thought she heard the rumble of thunder and looked up. Strange, not a cloud in the sky. She craned her neck to look over her shoulder and saw only a distant line of cloud, too far away for a storm to be heard. They’d rounded a sweeping bend and were travelling steadily.
Rosie was still talking. ‘Well, hurry it up. The sooner we’re in civilisation the better. Can’t he go any faster?’
Elsa kept her voice even. ‘Peppin’s done a good job so far, no point pushing him now. He’s got a nice steady pace on him.’
‘Give me the reins.’
‘No. We need him to be rested. You know it as well as I do.’
Rosie folded her arms. That proved not a good idea, and she dropped them to hang on to the cart. ‘You were always much better with animals than me.’
Elsa’s brows rose at the concession. That was a first, she decided. She didn’t dare comment; knowing how tired they both were, niggling each other now would make matters worse. ‘Not long to go now, I’m sure of it.’ She waited a beat. ‘Do you hear thunder?’
Rosie stared at her, incredulous. ‘No.’
Peppin jerked against the reins. Elsa held on. ‘Maybe he does.
I thought I did.’ Not willing to try and slow down the horse to listen—he was straining against her tug on his reins—Elsa gave Peppin his head. He was insistent.
‘Yes, now I hear it,’ Rosie cried and looked up. ‘But there are no clouds.’
Peppin whinnied, snorted, and pulled ahead. Elsa tried to hold him back but he surged forward. Her heart leapt. He shouldn’t be doing this, he should be calm …
The thunder increased, but it wasn’t overhead—it was behind them, the rumble of wheels over the main road. Then the crack of a whip sounded and a man’s yell urging his team faster.
Oh my Lord—a coach is behind us, no way of knowing we’re here …
‘Elsa,’ Rosie screamed.
Peppin squealed and tried to bolt. Elsa sucked in a breath and held on. Rosie grabbed the reins with her, but the horse had spooked. He was too strong. Elsa had to let him go and just try to hang on.
‘Pull him up,’ Rosie screeched. ‘Pull him up. He’ll kill us.’
‘I can’t—that coach will kill us, plough right into the back of us.’ A quick look over her shoulder and the big Cobb & Co coach, pulled by four galloping horses, was truly thundering behind and closing in on them. Men waved their arms madly in her direction from on top of the vehicle.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Elsa heard a man bellow. ‘Jesus Christ! Brake, man, brake. Hold the horses!’
Wild screams from inside the coach jolted her. ‘Peppin, go,’ Elsa cried and cracked the reins hard on his rump. Their poor horse answered with all he had, and they shot forward as the coach hurtled in pursuit.
And Rosie screamed, desperately hanging on, bouncing against Elsa and screaming some more. Elsa’s ears were ringing so loudly with it she thought her eyes would water. Then, unbelievably, up ahead— No, no, no …
Two masked men on horses shot out of the scrub and onto the road. One with bright red hair curling out from under his hat had the butt of a rifle sitting on the bulge of his big stomach. He blasted a shot in the air high overhead.
Peppin wasn’t having any of it—not Elsa dragging on his reins, not a gun going off in front of him, not a coach hurtling towards him from behind. He ploughed ahead, blindly, terrified and squealing, heading for the horsemen …
Until he slammed on his own brakes. The horse veered sideways across the narrow road, and still attached to his straps, the cart rocked precariously on an angle.
Elsa shrieked as she pitched forward between the cart and Peppin’s stomping hooves. The cart rocked from side to side and the timbers squealed as a crack seared down the middle of one of the brace poles. Elsa’s teeth rattled. Her hat flew off her head but stayed secured under her chin. Her hair sprang out of its pins and was whipping her face. The only things that stopped her falling under Peppin were her arms hung over the rigid rails. Then he pig-rooted. A bone cracked in her foot under a hind hoof and she grunted as the pain shot up her leg.
‘No, no, Peppin,’ Elsa breathed, scrambling out of the way. She hauled herself up, clear of Peppin’s kicking, and froze. Her eyes were fixed on the flaring nostrils of badly spooked coach horses—still galloping, so close. Th
en she was staring into the open mouth of the coach driver, his eyes wide in horror, his teeth bared and white against his dense black beard.
Death approaches swiftly …
Rosie, already hurled backwards on the cart, had scuttled to the ground. As she scampered off the road, skirt clutched, stumbling, she shouted, ‘Run, Elsa!’
Run!
Elsa couldn’t move. The driver’s black beard seemed to move in slow motion, the man’s mouth moving soundlessly.
Rosie had darted back but couldn’t get under Peppin’s hooves. Suddenly the other masked man, sinewy, dark haired, now on foot, reached under the cart and dragged Elsa out by her bodice. When he flung her aside out of harm’s way, she landed in a heap and let go a scream of indignation. Ignoring her, he ran back to his horse and with a leap, remounted. Rosie bunched her hands in Elsa’s skirt, tugging her off the dirt road.
Then Peppin decided to drag the wounded cart, hopping and bobbing behind him, to the side of the road. The big coach’s horses strained, and with them, the vehicle slid along behind, wheels juddering, brake locking—only yards from where Peppin was still blocking the way.
Elsa braced for the terrible impact …
Peppin then seemed to pop off the road, dragging the banging cart after him.
The driver was roaring, and his co-driver gripped the reins with him and hauled back. They were braced—
The horses, as one, slewed to a halt. Their squeals fell to heaving breaths. All other sounds fell away. The frightened yelps of panicked passengers thrown about, and the bellows from the men atop the coach grimly hanging on … It all stopped. In the silence, dust floated in a busy cloud over everything, and stones, flung high, fell like hail, the last one thudding in a puff.