Elsa Goody, Bushranger

by Darry Fraser

  She stopped, which was good. He was having trouble trying to take it all in. There were a lot of words.

  She went on, ‘To be with my husband, in the marital bed, was always a duty to be endured.’ Her face got even redder.

  He didn’t think she’d been enduring duty last night.

  When she’d first told him that she was married, Nebo hadn’t been overly concerned. A smart man would’ve guessed she’d been married—she was of an age. She could have been a widow. He’d listened to her reasons for leaving this Frank fella—it had all come out in a jumbled rush, and his head hurt trying to keep up. It irked him that Frank had not appreciated a good wife. Nebo had been looking for a woman to make his wife, and if Rosie was to be that woman, he would take her as she was, married to another or not, and be good to her. He looked over to Glen and Tillie. She was laughing in his arms, happy, carefree, married to someone else, not Glen. It didn’t matter to them. Why should it matter to him?

  ‘So you are under no obligation to me.’ She twisted her ring finger, but there was no ring on it, only a pale mark where one might have been.

  ‘I’d like to be.’ Sitting beside her on the sturdy bench seat that Fred and Alice had put together, he bumped her shoulder very slightly. ‘We’ve just taken a shortcut in the courtship; moved to a more interesting stage.’ He noted the beet-red flush was still in her cheeks.

  Looking away, she said, ‘You are a man without prospects, and I am now well and truly a fallen woman.’

  He thought for a moment. He wanted to hear her sigh again, like she had last night. He wanted to hear her voice in his ear, urging him harder and deeper. ‘Nobody but you and I need know any of our private business. Ever.’

  ‘I would need to survive.’

  ‘I’ll look after you. Besides, I do have prospects. I can go see my brothers, work for them. They each have small farms.’ He hadn’t told her yet why he hadn’t already done so. He hadn’t said that he was a petty thief, a layabout, jealous of one brother and ignored by the other. Well, today was the day he would change his ways. He could do it. He hadn’t held up the coach, he hadn’t done that last job even though it had been the intention. His little band was breaking up, so he had the opportunity now to … try to make good.

  ‘People would talk if we lived together.’

  Again, he took his time before he spoke. ‘Nebo Jones has been gone from high society for years.’

  A ghost of a smile was on that mouth of hers. ‘Would your family accept me?’

  He laid a hand over hers yet when she made no reaction, he took it away. ‘I’m the only one who needs to accept you.’

  ‘I can’t have children,’ she blurted.

  He shrugged. ‘Zeke has children. The way I feel right now, it doesn’t matter to me that you can’t have any.’ How—why he felt so strongly, he didn’t know. He’d had women before, women he’d taken when they offered, women he’d let go, or who’d let him go. None had affected him like this woman had, and it had been real fast.

  She reached for his hand and her fingers squeezed his. ‘It’s very quick, this courtship,’ she whispered.

  ‘We were in a hurry,’ he said, matching her whisper. The thought of her lush breast in his hand, her taut nipple in his mouth, and the warmth and wet between her legs … The surprised little sigh that escaped her as he slipped in there to stroke and push, and touch and own.

  ‘It was never like that for me before,’ she said and ducked her head. ‘Never.’ She took a deep sigh. ‘And I am so lewd to be discussing these things with a man, in the daylight, in the open air.’

  ‘In that case, I’m impatient for the night.’

  She shook her head, a worried laugh escaping. ‘Will we get along, do you think? I’ve been a wife before, and I don’t—’

  ‘But you’ve not had a husband like me before.’

  Rosie looked down at their hands. ‘Elsa and I, we came looking for your brother, so that we could learn more about what happened to our George. And then we were to have our father’s will read. Though now that I’ve left my husband, I don’t know what that would mean for me. Or for Elsa.’ She glanced at him.

  Nebo shut up. Was she asking him to take on the sister as well? He moved on the seat, uncomfortable. ‘I can’t have—’

  ‘She is all I’ve got to rely on,’ Rosie went on.

  Didn’t seem to matter when you let her go yesterday. Nebo felt a prickle of shame. He didn’t want Rosie to lose her sister, but nor did he want to look after the sister.

  ‘Until we find what else George had with him.’

  Nebo frowned at that. ‘The locket, a few buttons.’

  ‘Nothing else?’ Rosie was very intent.

  ‘Not that I saw. Zeke has everything I found.’ Then he remembered a look that passed between the sisters yesterday. ‘What else is there?’

  ‘I’m trusting you, so you better tell me the truth. It was a tin of sovereigns. Thirty sovereigns, perhaps more.’ Rosie stared at him.

  Shit. Thirty sovereigns. ‘There was no tin.’

  ‘If we find that tin, it’s half Elsa’s and half mine. That way Elsa could live independently, to start, anyway. We could live without the farm, and I could live without—anything from my old life.’

  ‘What farm?’

  ‘The farm we had back near Robe. It would be in my father’s will and Elsa has it with her. So as soon as we find the tin, we can hire a solicitor and find out who administers. If I’m not with my husband any longer, it won’t matter, will it?’

  He shook his head slowly. Thirty sovereigns. He let that swirl about in his head; he needed a plan. The petty thief was at work. He looked at Rosie, couldn’t read her. No, he couldn’t let this layabout Nebo sneak back in.

  He squeezed Rosie’s hand again. ‘It won’t matter, don’t you worry,’ he said, although it didn’t sound like his voice. ‘We’ll find a way around things.’ He wanted to believe his words, he did, but unease settled in his gut, oily, something akin to fear. He didn’t know what he’d just agreed to. Even to his own ears, it had sounded like it had come from someone else—from someone who was a grown-up.

  Thirty-Four

  Zeke had heard the shot. His heart banged against his ribs as he left Mrs Hartman in his wake. Sweet Christ, who were they shooting at? His kids? His brother?

  Elsa? Then he saw her drop on the verandah. They’ve shot her, the bastards. And where was his bloody rifle? In his room at the house with Jude. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

  Poor Milo was galloping as fast as he could. Zeke was low over his neck, urging the horse with his heels. He turned and yelled to Mrs Hartman, ‘Stay well back.’ Shit, if he hadn’t spent so much time waiting for her at her house while she dithered about …

  He was closing in. He saw the troopers wheel about on their mounts and straighten up when they saw him. One of them dropped his rifle, threw his hands in the air. The other one was having trouble controlling his horse.

  Milo skidded in alongside them, bumped the horse under the trooper whose arms were still over his head. In a rage, Zeke reached over and hauled him out of the saddle by the shirtfront, then slung him to the ground. Only a lad he was and scared to death by the look of him. He turned Milo about for the other.

  ‘It weren’t us, it weren’t us,’ the older trooper screeched. ‘We didn’t fire.’ He threw his rifle to the dirt.

  ‘Liar.’ Zeke stepped onto Milo’s back and lunged at the other man. He ripped him out of the saddle. The man’s foot caught in the stirrup, twisted. He squealed, dangling upside down, as Zeke tumbled past. Scrambling back on his feet, Zeke bunched his hands in the man’s coat. ‘You fucking bastards—’

  ‘It weren’t us, swear to God,’ the man screamed, his face red. ‘Me foot. Me foot.’

  Zeke didn’t let go until he checked the verandah and saw Gracie helping Elsa to her feet, a crutch of some sort tucked under her arm.

  ‘We’re all right, Pa,’ Gracie yelled.

  He wrenched the man’s foot
out of the stirrup and threw him off, left him in a writhing heap. He slapped the trooper’s horse hard and it took no time stomping off. ‘Stop your bloody squealing,’ he shouted. ‘What the fuck do you think you were doin’?’ He spun around and descended on the boy.

  The young fella scampered out of reach. ‘We were lookin’ for Nebo,’ he said, his eyes large, and snot running over his lip. ‘He done a hold-up. We knew Jude was banged up and we reckoned Nebo’d come ’ere, so we’d catch him ’ere.’

  ‘You reckoned wrong, you stupid bastard.’ Zeke spun back to the older man and pointed. ‘If I find one splinter has harmed my family,’ he said, teeth bared as he dropped to his haunches. His face was close to the other man’s, his rage thrumming. ‘I’ll hunt you down, and Nebo Jones will be the least of your worries.’ He stood, grabbed the trooper up and shoved him. ‘So, get on your way. Get off my land.’

  The trooper stumbled. He waved the younger one over and together they got him steady on his feet. ‘I busted me ankle.’

  ‘Not likely. Get lost, before I give you something else to whine about.’ Zeke bounded up the verandah steps, anger leaching out of him and fear replacing it. He hauled Gracie into his arms, and she clung to him, her wiry arms around his neck. He rocked her, his heart thudding. He was suddenly wild and lost, light-headed.

  ‘I’m all right, Pa,’ she said into his shoulder. ‘They did shoot once, after Uncle Jude shot his gun. But that last shot was Giff. He fired the rifle from inside.’

  Mrs Hartman was helping Elsa to stand as she struggled up against the wall. Zeke’s rage had been so blinding he hadn’t seen the older woman gallop in behind him. Giff leapt out the door and ran full-bodied into him. Jonty followed, his little face bright red. He fell into the huddle and Zeke rocked all three, his arms tight around them.

  Mrs Hartman steadied Elsa then she marched off the verandah. She bore down on the young trooper as he helped the other man limp towards his horse. ‘When I see your mother, Tommy Broadbent, there’ll be hell to pay. Shooting on women and children—what on earth possessed you, bailing up a young family and acting like a hooligan?’

  ‘Miz Hartman, I swear I—’

  ‘Don’t you snivel at me.’ She wagged a finger under his nose. ‘Get back to that farm of yours and do some hard work for a change,’ she snapped, her voice cracking. ‘Don’t be running around with the likes of this one.’ She thumbed towards the man he was half carrying.

  ‘Get me horse, boy,’ the older trooper growled. ‘Outta my way, missus.’

  Mrs Hartman glared at him. ‘You irresponsible great dolt, Ernest Kilby. You pathetic galumphing fool. Your senior officer will hear about this.’ She spun on her heels and steamed towards the verandah. ‘And you children, you’re not to repeat those bad words of your father’s.’

  Zeke stifled a laugh in Gracie’s hair. He watched the troopers snatch their rifles from the ground, clamber onto their mounts and ride off. He looked over and saw Jude’s face in the window.

  ‘Jesus, brother,’ Jude said. ‘What the hell have we got in these women here?’

  His kids were untouched, unharmed. They were fine. Mrs Hartman was fine—in fact, in fine mettle. Zeke still had a smile, despite his fright. His estimation of Mrs Hartman had risen considerably. As for Giff, he’d frightened himself, so no need to go crook at him—though when the boy had picked up the rifle again, he’d snatched it from the lad’s shaking grip. Zeke would put more time into teaching Giff how to better handle the Martini-Henry rifle and when to use it.

  Mrs Hartman was attending to the other two children and Jude. She was soothing Jonty’s wails but Gracie was her calm little self. Jude’s protests were loudest of all, especially when she changed his dressing. His stitches had held together, but there was a small tear that had bled. She wasn’t sounding overly patient when he whinged about it.

  Miss Goody had shuffled, white-faced and wincing, along the wall of the hallway until he and Gracie got back to help her into the old parlour room. Despite spots of blood on her face and forearm where glass and splinters had flown at her, she seemed unhurt. When they angled her to sit on the cot, Gracie knelt and brushed debris off her sore foot and picked out a couple of tiny pieces of the shattered window. Nothing another bandage wouldn’t fix after a wash with lye soap. She’d impressed him somewhat, but he had an issue about Gracie and he couldn’t leave it unsaid.

  ‘Miss Goody,’ Zeke said. He was standing in the doorway of the room into which he’d always stuffed unwanted or unused bits and pieces: things he thought he might use one day and never had; things he thought his kids might enjoy. The cluttered space seemed different to him now, as if an extra presence had changed its purpose. He would clean it out. ‘Thank you for all your help.’ He took a breath. ‘Though, I’d have much preferred my daughter hadn’t been with you when you confronted an armed trooper.’

  ‘Gracie was very brave out there,’ Elsa said, still pale in the face. She rubbed her foot as she sat on the edge of the cot, then pulled her hem over it and tucked it back out of sight.

  ‘She shouldn’t have been there at all,’ he said, hearing the censure in his tone.

  There was a hesitation, a slight frown. ‘No. She shouldn’t have.’ She glanced away. ‘Thankfully, that idiot trooper wasn’t stupid enough to shoot at a woman and a child.’

  ‘Even so, he might have.’ He watched her take in a silent, deep breath at his rebuke. Clearly, she’d done what she thought best at the time, but it had been reckless behaviour to allow a child out there in that situation.

  ‘Quite right. I apologise. I never meant for your daughter to be in harm’s way.’ She gave him a tight smile that did not reach her eyes. She looked away and took another deep breath. ‘In the morning, I’ll be able to ride to my brother’s grave by myself if you direct me, and then I’ll depart your property afterwards. My brother’s resting place, and finding the locket, were the sole reasons for my coming here—and to thank you, of course.’

  Giff pushed into the room from behind his father. ‘Miss Goody, I finished the other stick,’ he said, a broad smile breaking his usually solemn features. He brandished the crutch. ‘Uncle Jude said it’s a fine job.’

  Now her smile was genuine, and her eyes lit up as Giff thrust the stick at her. She struggled onto her feet to test both crutches. ‘It is indeed a fine job. Thank you, Gifford.’

  ‘Call me Giff,’ he said expansively.

  Elsa Goody didn’t miss a beat. ‘It will do me very well, Giff,’ she said, and took a couple of awkward paces, dodging furniture. ‘I’m grateful to you.’

  His son beamed with pleasure, not something Zeke had seen for a long time. The boy nodded at her and ducked around his father out the door.

  Elsa manoeuvred her way back to the cot. ‘Perhaps someone would strap these to my horse tomorrow, so I might use them again after I leave. They’ll be very handy.’ She let them drop to the floor, side by side, and resumed her seat. Using both hands, she pushed back her long, thick wavy hair, which looked to be only partly secured. It hung more than halfway down her back in a heavy dense drop. ‘I think I would like to take a nap, now, Mr Jones. I seem to be out of breath.’

  Amazing. He had been dismissed. Swiftly she’d put the boot on the other foot. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Hartman to look in on you,’ he said.

  She glanced at him. ‘No need,’ she said politely.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he answered, and not waiting for a protest, if any, reached over to pull the door shut behind him as he left. Her gaze, bright, intense and bold, stayed with him long into the afternoon and the night.

  ‘I’ll have to go with her, Jude,’ Zeke said, his voice low. In his hand was a tin cup with a tot of rum in it. He gave his brother a sidelong glance as they sat on the verandah. ‘Back to Nebo’s camp. I can’t let her go by herself. She was just lucky to make it to us the other night without any trouble.’

  Jude nodded, eyes wide, mouth pursed. He lifted his own cup. ‘Yeah, no, you can’t let her go by hersel
f.’

  The children were abed after their bath, overseen by Mrs Hartman who had also returned Elsa’s cleaned and dried chemise. After saying goodnight, then goodbye to Elsa and wishing her a safe journey, she had just gratefully taken her leave to collapse onto Gracie’s bed once more.

  Miss Goody had emerged for dinner but had also retired for the evening. She wanted to be up and gone by dawn, she’d said, so declared she needed an early night. But before she left for her room, and as his kids chattered away to her, telling her of their school, their chores, their animals, she’d looked at Zeke briefly. ‘Do you have any story books, Mr Jones?’

  He’d watched Jonty slip off his seat at the table to stand by her chair. The boy stared up at her before slipping his hand in hers.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ he said.

  ‘You must get one so you can read to your children before bed.’

  She’d turned away, missed seeing his mouth agape, and was giving Jonty her attention. He’d climbed on her knee. Despite Zeke’s lukewarm objection to that, she wrapped her arms around the boy and began to relate a tale of three bears and a little girl. Jonty, who didn’t know what a bear was, kept interrupting and so the tale went on for a while. Her audience had been enraptured. Finishing the story amid demands for more, Elsa was readying to leave the table when Gracie offered to fix her hair for the night. ‘Not tonight,’ she’d told his daughter. ‘But if you’re awake very early I would certainly appreciate some help then.’

  Gracie had smiled her delight. Zeke’s heart gladdened at that, but his own delight had been diminished by the fact that Miss Goody would not make eye contact with him. Most likely she was still upset that he’d chipped her about having Gracie on the verandah when those fool troopers were aiming guns at her.

  Zeke shook out of his thoughts and swirled the liquid in his cup before addressing Jude. ‘Seems Nebo gave her exact directions. If we follow it in reverse, it should take us back to him and his camp. If he doesn’t want to come here, at least I can warn him to keep out of sight.’ He took a swallow of his rum. ‘But I don’t like the idea of leaving you with only the kids.’ He looked across, straight-faced. ‘And Mrs Hartman.’