The Bark Cutters (25 page)

‘Simply a decorative piece?' Hamish repeated, moving to tap his pipe into the hearth. ‘That piano cost a large sum of money, and there was the cost of transportation.' The veins on his neck bulged, gorged with temper. The deepening welts contrasted with the white of his shirt. ‘I will not have you behaving in such a, such a …'

Rose held the darning needle tightly between her fingers. For three nights she had listened to the creak of door and bed, the pouring of water, the patter of black feet on timbered boards.

‘Please accept my apologies if my answer doesn't suit you, Hamish.' She worked quickly at her stitches, mending the small hole in the baby's woollen booties.

‘Enough!' His face, contorted with fury, changed from its usual ruddy complexion to deep crimson.

For a moment Rose wondered if he would suffer some form of attack, drop to the floor, dead. She would sell it all, of course. Return to Ridge Gully. Collect her daughter and start anew.

‘Mister Hamish, you come, you come quick!' Lee said urgently, barging into the sitting room, hands and pigtail flying, and then scuttling out of the room. Hamish walked quickly after Lee, through the dining room and along the narrow walkway to the kitchen. Pots and pans simmered above the open fire, one of the black maids stirring a blackened boiler nervously. Hamish acknowledged the presence of Howard and William, sitting with untouched plates of mutton and damper before them, and Mrs Cudlow, threatening a wooden spoon in her hand, should they move. The wet nurse sat in a rocker in the corner, suckling Samuel, a knowing grin showing broken yellow teeth.

Out in the dirt of Lee's vegetable patch, Milly hovered about the body of a young girl, a length of bloodied firewood at her feet. She wailed as she encircled her victim, feet shuffling the dirt of the garden. Hamish noted the torn material about the girl's neckline, the darkening spray of blood beginning to dry on the dress, the mad whiteness of her eyes against the black skin.

Stooping to roll the body over, Hamish flinched at the warm skin, almost velvet under its sheen of sweat. Grace lay dead at his feet, the face bashed and raw. Congealed blood matted the dark shoulder-length tangle of hair, clouded the girl's left eye, stuck in the soft curves of her ear, rested in the hollow of her throat. Clearing his throat, Hamish left Milly to her soft moans.

‘Very bad,' Lee mumbled.

‘Yes, Lee,' Hamish agreed, catching the devastated look on his wife's face as she stood at the rear entrance to the kitchen, ‘Very bad.'

‘Mr Boss, Mr Boss!' Milly yelled sadly at the sight of Boxer
and Jasperson walking towards her from around the corner of the house.

‘Sorry, boss. Sorry.' Boxer shook the girl roughly. With his hand gripping hers, he dragged her roughly through the dirt of the yard, the girl kicking and yelling wildly. Jasperson inclined his head towards the body and with a silent look of acknowledgement at Hamish, walked over to the vegetable garden to collect the dead girl. Lee was already down on his knees raking over the blood with his fingers, replanting trampled herbs and vegetables.

At the house boundary, Boxer handed the now sobbing Milly over to two of his tribesman, her legs flailing in the dirt as she was dragged between the two men. Shaking his head sadly, he hitched his slipping braces up over his shoulder, rubbing sleep from his eyes and dust and encrusted snot from around his nose. Pushing a tangle of shoulder-length greasy hair from his face, he readjusted his wide-brimmed hat. This was not what Boxer wished for his people, it was not what he wished for himself. He thought the boss was good, but like all whites he thought by conquering the people of this country, the land would easily be his. He would never own it. The land would own the boss, forever.

Perhaps Boxer considered he should have left with the rest of the tribe instead of enticing the thirty to remain with him when Hamish Gordon first arrived as the new owner of this land. Waking early and crawling from his humpy, Boxer had watched as the others gathered their belongings. The boss had offered clothes and food as an enticement for Boxer's people to stay and work for him, but many refused. The white man's clothes were shredded to make head ties and to wrap belongings like small bowls and tools, which were then tied to the end of sticks. The men held hunting sticks and knives in lengths of material wrapped about their waists. Some of the women wore skirts, but most were naked. Children were wrapped tight in pieces of shirt and tied to their mother's backs. In single file the people walked away and
Boxer doubted he would see many of them again. He understood now that they had foreseen something he could not imagine.

That night Hamish dreamed of death. Milly and Grace were buried in the dirt of Wangallon yet, in his mind, overfed crows circled the black women, dark formless shadows circled them. Death, the terrible expanse of it, came to him suddenly. He likened the magnitude of it to a night swallowing him slowly, until his mind wrestled with nothing. Wrestled eternally with nothing, for there was nothing behind it and nothing after it. Milly had been speared.

He awoke late in the evening when the dry plains released a breeze to ease the stifling confinement of his room. He imagined himself and Charlie swooping together as if owls, over Wangallon Station. Their moon shadows hovering over the blacks' camp, down over the river bank to the bark humpy where Dave slept between mother and daughter, across to the woolshed, its yards filled for the next day's shearing. At the picket fence they rested, Charlie smiling as if in encouragement, then he was gone. In the morning, darkness still heavy, Hamish lit the bedside lamp, holding its light high. He waved it about the room, searching for the forms that had been by his side, for the pungent Scottish herbage in his nostrils.

‘I will not go near the blacks again,' he murmured. ‘I have done wrong.' But nor could he go on the way he had in the past. He desperately needed to make amends for his recent actions. He needed a reason to hope for the future, for didn't he too deserve some semblance of happiness in his life? This morning he would write to the Abishari brothers, he decided. He would owe them a favour, but it would be worth it.

Screeching birds shattered Sarah's morning dreams. Having arrived at Wangallon the previous afternoon following the request from her grandfather, she was at a loss to explain why she was needed. Angus had picked her up at the airport, and they had eaten Kentucky Fried Chicken straight from the bucket and drunk coffee during the car trip home, her grandfather discussing everything except his out-of-the-ordinary request. From her bed, propped up on pillows, Sarah could see the sun streaking through the doors flung wide onto the gauzed-in verandah. Soon the verandah, littered with ancient tables and chairs and catching the morning breeze, would be the only cool place in the house. A shaft of light stroked her favourite squatter's chair. The half-chair, half-recliner was very old, but the elongated pieces of timber under their armrests could still be extended out to rest weary legs on. Her grandfather reckoned old Hamish Gordon owned it and sometimes, in the still of the early morning, she could imagine him sitting there, smoking his pipe and planning his day.

The grass area in front of the house, rarely soft and green, was now extremely dry. Once it had held a circular driveway for carriages and drays and there had been a hitching post for horses. No wonder, Sarah thought, so many plants struggled to survive during the years. It was almost as if the ground needed to be top dressed every year in order to counteract the years of passing traffic. Odd circular patches, where sprinklers eased the small plants' suffering, highlighted the brittle brown. Year after year, her grandmother, like Sarah's mother, had planted seedlings, tiny plants, bringing the promise of beautiful flowers. So many times it had been a useless exercise. Droughts, birds swooping down to pluck the tasty shoots, dogs, never chained when they should be, rolling and peeing in the turned soil and in the drier seasons, rabbits methodically munching all in their paths.

Now, only trees survived: tall gums, wilgas and belahs waving wildly in the strong autumn wind. Contrasting these were huge cacti. These spiking monstrosities swelled from the ground with such passion that no-one ever had the heart to prune them back. Sarah loved their dull green colour, the angular shapes. They guarded the horizon, reminding her of their cousins in the American west. In the far corner of the garden, old flower tubs held hardy geranium and bougainvillea. As a child, with Granny Angie beside her, fairies had come alive, translucent angels floating on miniature rafts of pink geranium petals. The dark pinks and reds of bougainvillea hid the secret bowers of these invisible princesses. Not that they flowered regularly now. No-one had the same dedication to gardening as her grandmother.

Directly in front of the garden, the red orb of the sun glimmered, its hot rays reaching through bushes and trees, touching all with indifference. Gradually the garden came to life. Small twittering birds darted across the lawn, a rooster sung heartily, the dogs, always anxious to bark, joining in loudly. This had been her grandmother's favourite time of the day. At the memory Sarah
thought she saw a figure walking at the end of the garden. Ridiculous, now she was imagining things, just like her mother.

Her grandfather's radio boomed harshly into the morning solitude. Sarah filled a glass with the diminishing rainwater feeding through to the house from the tank outside and joined her grandfather at the large kitchen table.

‘Morning.'

‘Hi, Grandfather.' She poured a mug of tea from the shiny blue pot and added milk and sugar. ‘Um, any particular reason why you needed me up here this weekend?'

‘Does there need to be?' her grandfather answered in his usual curt manner.

‘Well, of course not.'

‘Good.' Angus munched noisily on toast and vegemite. ‘Shouldn't really need a reason for a grandfather to want to see his granddaughter.'

Sarah poured muesli into a pale blue ceramic bowl and adding milk, took a mouthful. Maybe age was catching up with her grandfather and he was simply lonely.

‘I was thinking about my family.'

‘Dad?' Sarah asked.

‘No.' Angus took another bite of toast the crunching emphasising her error. ‘My half-brother.'

Sarah choked, spitting out the muesli. ‘You had a half-brother?' She cupped her hand, wiping the small missiles of chewed grain and fruit from her chin and table.

Her grandfather winked at her. ‘You see, you're not so different.'

Sarah deposited the half-chewed remnants of her breakfast back into her cereal bowl. ‘I never knew. No-one ever said anything.'

‘People don't talk about that type of thing. You know that.'

Sarah pushed her bowl aside. ‘Were you upset about it?'

‘Why would I be upset? Your great-uncle Luke was a real good fella. He lived here in this house intermittently between droving jobs and would sit at this kitchen table, tin mug in hand, talking of the stars. I was near forty years his junior.'

‘Wow.' Sarah thought of all the conversations from over the years, nestling in the ancient timber, stoking the old fuel stove in winter, stirring a breeze in the long heat of summer. ‘But how does he fit into the family tree?'

‘Just like Cameron. Nicely.'

‘Why doesn't anyone talk about this family-tree stuff?'

Angus hunched his shoulders. ‘Anyway the point is, girl, no-one deceived anyone with regards to Cameron, they just didn't know how to handle it.'

‘So it wasn't that no-one wanted me to know?' Sarah asked, needing a final confirmation.

Her grandfather inclined his head to one side and gave an exaggerated scowl. ‘It didn't change the way you felt about him, did it?'

‘No.' Sarah poured herself more tea, her eyes moistening. ‘Thanks, Grandfather.'

He waved her words aside. The water carrier, due today to fill the homestead's tanks, reminded him of Anthony's garden at West Wangallon. It too was starting to suffer from the prolonged dry spell.

‘Sarah, why don't you go and visit your old house? Anthony is just caretaking it after all, and I'm sure that –'

‘No, thanks. I better wait for an invite.'

Angus scratched his scraggy neck. ‘Stubborn, eh? Well, it will be a hot one today, Sarah.' There were four hundred head of cattle to be moved to another paddock. Yesterday, a mob of sheep had escaped through the fence on the west boundary, and the stock inspector impounded them.

‘I don't want another debacle like the one we had with the sheep yesterday. You know that bastard could have called.'

‘You wouldn't have spoken to him anyway.'

‘Well, with everything starving, it wouldn't matter if you had a brick wall, the animals would still manage to see what's on the other side. What's the bloody point of inspecting the routes now? If an animal strays onto any of the stock routes around here at the moment, the only thing he's going to be getting is a mouthful of dirt.'

‘You should tell him that,' Sarah agreed, sipping her tea. ‘How's the new jackeroo going?'

‘Well, if you're asking me if he is as good as Anthony was at the same age, you know the answer to that one. I hand-picked Anthony myself. You get what you research.'

‘Right. You didn't choose Colin then?'

‘Nope. Thought I'd try out Anthony's managerial skills. The kid's from the territory. An orphan or something like that.'

‘Is he worth paying?' Sarah asked, using a favourite line of his.

‘I'm reserving judgement. Well, what are you waiting for? Time to clock-on, lass.'

Sarah looked at the brass-rimmed clock hanging above the now rarely used Aga wood stove, which electricity and bottled gas had long since relegated to only the coldest of days. It was 6.20 a.m. It didn't matter what time she got out of bed in the morning, she was never up early enough to finish breakfast.

‘Day's half gone, lass. You're the Gordon, so get out there and give some orders.'

Anthony waited patiently at the stables. Colin, having already saddled Warrigal and his own mare, Bette, rolled himself a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

‘Thought you were going to give those up?' Anthony said as a Land Cruiser came into view, haloed by dust.

‘Next year.'

Anthony patted Warrigal's neck. ‘Sorry about your day off being buggered up.'

Taking another drag of his roll-your-own, Colin shrugged. ‘Guess no-one can do much when the head honcho steps in.'

‘Yeah, well, I think Mr Gordon delayed this job so Sarah could get out and do a bit on the place.'

‘When do you reckon he'll retire?'

‘Retire?' Anthony laughed. ‘Never. He'll stay here until the next generation is ready to come home and even then he'll still be steering the ship.'

‘What? You mean her?' Colin questioned, finishing his statement with a sour spit of flem into the dirt at his feet. ‘I thought youse would get the place.'

Anthony clapped Colin on the back. ‘Last time I checked my surname wasn't Gordon.' He watched as the vehicle pulled up and Sarah appeared.

‘A woman.' Colin drew the word out slowly.

‘Yes,' Anthony said, ‘a woman.'

Colin narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

‘Hi Anthony.'

Anthony allowed himself a quick admiring glance at the slim form hidden within a long-sleeved pale blue cotton shirt and dark blue jeans. ‘Good to see you, Sarah. You remember Colin?'

‘Sure. Hi Colin.'

Colin barely grunted. ‘Which horse?'

‘Blaze,' Sarah answered, ‘thanks, Colin.'

Anthony shook his head. ‘He's a bit testy, Sarah. I'd take Oscar.'

‘My riding hasn't deteriorated that much, Anthony.'

‘I think old Oscar would be better,' Anthony persisted.

Sarah shook her head. ‘And I think we had better stop quibbling and go.'

‘Day's half gone already,' Colin said pointedly.

‘In that case, Colin, the sooner you get Blaze for me the sooner we can be on our way.' Sarah watched Colin as he walked around to the horse yard to fetch Blaze. ‘I think your new jackeroo has a bit of an attitude.'

‘He's not the only one,' Anthony replied with a bemused expression.

‘Keep a firm hand on those reins,' Anthony yelled after Sarah as Blaze took off. ‘And no stockwhips near him. You hear that, Colin?'

Colin gave a brief nod of his head.

‘Whatever,' Sarah yelled back. After all, Blaze was her horse. Well, officially he was her grandfather's, but he was the last colt out of the old mare Charlotte, Cameron's last horse.

The cattle were scattered in varying-sized mobs along the stock route. The familiar red and white of the Hereford breed was strikingly prominent against the pale of the grass. Sarah twitched her heels lightly against Blaze's flanks and headed towards cows and calves sheltering beneath a tall belah tree. The mothers, annoyed at being disturbed, stood their ground for several seconds before stalking off to join the ever-growing mob, their young racing behind. Every so often the old cows would slow to ensure their babies followed, often turning to walk back through the mob to check on their progress. Sarah kept Blaze at a steady walk, picking up more cows and calves as she neared the boundary fence. What undoubtedly started as a broken barb wire was now a trampled mess of broken wires extending about eighteen metres. It would
take a good hour to repair, she concluded, a good job for Colin. No-one liked fencing.