Tommo & Hawk (26 page)

'Don't you tell me what makes sense, nigger! What don't make sense is that the likes of you should escape Jack Ketch! I shall take pleasure in watching you dangle from the beam.'

'You never did intend to let us escape, did you?' I say.

'Ya tried to work a double scam!' Tommo shouts. 'A doublecross! It were the Portugee captain what was meant to take the night with a running flush!'

Nottingham doesn't deny this, but sends a gob of spittle to the floor. 'You'll be going to Auckland tomorrow, took by boat, full manacles and shackles,' he says, then he stoops and picks up the half-loaf of bread. 'Maybe you'll have better manners when you be a little more hungry and thirsty, eh lads?' With this he clangs the heavy door shut, taking the bread with him.

We look at each other, waiting until the rattle of the keys dies away and we can hear Nottingham's footsteps departing.

'What on earth are we gunna do?' groans Tommo.

'We must try to get a message to Mary, have her call upon the governor so that he might intervene, talk to Governor Gore Browne over here.'

'It'll take too long for her to get here, we'll be dead by then.'

'You will not die, Tommo - only I perhaps,' I hasten to comfort him.

Tommo swallows. 'I wouldn't want to go on without you, Hawk.'

'Of course you would.' I try to remain cheerful. 'You could get drunk every day with nobody to nag you.'

Tommo falls silent for a while then begins to talk. 'More than once in the wilderness I wanted to give it away, toss it in, just walk out into the river and keep walking, but you were always there with me. I didn't know what had become of you, maybe the same as me, but I knew you was not dead, felt it in me bones. Long as I felt that, I could hang on.' He grins. 'I admits, I done it with the help o' Slit's whisky still. Without that,' he shrugs, 'I dunno.'

Then he says slowly, 'That were drinking with hope. The hope that one day we'd be together again. If the mongrels gets you now, strings you up, and leaves me here, that be drinking without hope. I'd sooner be dead, you and me together on the gallows, Tommo and Hawk together to the last breath.'

'Come here, Tommo,' I say.

Tommo crawls over to me.

'I can't hug you because I'm shackled, but you can hug me, little brother,' I say to him.

Tommo grabs my arm in both his hands and, putting his head against my shoulder, begins to weep softly. 'Oh God, I loves ya, Hawk!' he sobs. I can feel that he weeps not because of our predicament, but for all the years in the wilderness, all the loneliness. He cries for all the love in him that has dried up and shouldn't have.

'I love you too, Tommo,' I say. 'More than ever I can say!' And there we are, both of us bawling our eyes out.

It is Tommo who finally clears his throat to speak. 'Ya know what gives me the screaming shits most of all?'

'What?' I sniff.

'The fucking mongrels has won!'

'Only when the trap-door opens under our feet. We aren't dead yet,' I say, but there is not a great deal of conviction in my voice.

'Looks as though this time the Sheriff o' bloody Nottingham did get Robin Hood. What a turn-up for the books,' Tommo sighs.

I try to lighten the subject. 'Know what gives me the, er, shits?'

'What?' he asks.

'I never had a chance to know Maid Marian.'

'You still a virgin then? Well I never!' Tommo laughs.

I nod my head and grin, imitating Ikey. 'Absolutely and with certainty and not to be doubted, my dears, the wiles o' the fairer sex be most mystifying and bedding one what's not a whore is a most tricky set o* peregrinations and not always a journey o' the heart worth the sweat of one's brow!'

Tommo laughs again. 'It were the only nice part o' the wilderness, women wanting a taste o' liquor for a favour granted.'

I think to myself that I wouldn't wish it that way. Once perhaps, just to know what it feels like, but then I'd want something different. Not that I know anything about loving a woman. But I've seen how Mary looks at Mr Emmett and he at her. I don't think anything is going on between them - their different stations in life don't allow it — but the softness you can feel between those two, that's what I'd like to have.

Tommo interrupts my thoughts. 'You ain't missed a lot, swiving's a bit disappointing really. Well the sort of stuff I has done, anyway,' he laughs. 'Knee-tremblers, sort of. Breeches still on!'

I try to imagine what he's talking about. I think of these knee-tremblers and my size and I can see in my mind it isn't possible. Besides, I'm a nigger - I don't suppose any woman would have me unless I paid for it.

'Tommo, have you, er, been in love? You know, like in the library books?' I ask. I don't like to admit to him that I've read everything in Mrs Dean's Hobart Town Lending Library, including the romances!

'Nah,' he says, ‘I reckon love only happens in them stories.'

'I hope not,' I says.

I must have sounded wistful because Tommo shakes his head. 'Christ Jesus, Hawk! What's wrong with ya? First you want men to have a bloody conscience, now you want a woman what loves you! And you want to love her back! You got about as much chance o' finding a woman to love as you got o' giving mongrels like Nottingham a conscience! Better keep on pullin' your pud, that way you'll meet a better class of woman than what would think to mix with the likes of us!'

I laugh. Tommo as always is the practical man. I can well imagine the dainty little lass that I'd like for my own, but I can't imagine anyone like her agreeing to marry me. Anyway, it's all pointless, isn't it? Nothing but divine intervention will save our lives now.

I think of our beloved mama and her life's motto, 'I shall never surrender.' I cheer up a bit at this thought. Perhaps I can delay the trial. I have read a little of the law, Mary always being anxious to know her rights, and the other brewers in Hobart Town ever threatening to force her out of business by means of the law. In their opinion, a woman has no right to be in brewing and moreover to be successful at it. Subpoenas, it seems, are a way of life with the pure merino brewers. Beer and barristers go together like a horse and cart.

'What's that noise?' Tommo asks abruptly. His ears are all the sharper for his time in the wilderness. 'It's people,' he answers himself, 'coming our way.' We fall silent, both listening. 'A mob . . . marching,' Tommo says, 'coming closer, here maybe.'

Then I hear it, faintly, I cannot tell from what direction. We wait and by and by the shouting and marching grows louder. 'What do you think it is?' I ask.

Tommo shrugs. 'Buggered if I knows.'

The noise escalates until we are sure it's a very large mob, heading towards the gaol. Strains of singing float toward us, mingled with shouting. Tommo listens intently, trying to make out the words. 'Shit! They're after us!' he cries.

Now I hear it for myself. 'Utu! Utu!' Revenge! Revenge!

'Maori,' Tommo says quietly. 'Oh no, they's after you for killing the Hairy Horror!'

We listen as someone shouts for silence, and there's a hush as someone addresses the crowd. It's Nottingham. But his voice is quickly drowned out by a great roar of protest as a thunder of stones rain down on the corrugated iron roof. 'Utu! Utu! Utu!' The chanting takes up again, though some of it is lost under the rain of rocks. We hear cheering and the sound of running and more rocks being thrown. Then we smell smoke. Fire!

'They's burning us down!' Tommo cries again. 'The bastards is burning us out!'

Suddenly there is a rattle of keys and the cell door is flung open. Four Maori push through the door with others crowding behind them. Beyond them, I can see nothing but smoke. There is no one to save us. They drag me out of the cell, cursing and shouting. I struggle as much as I can, but the manacles and shackles restrain me. Two of them, both big men, have me by the legs and two about the shoulders and then others rush to join them until a dozen hands are attached to me. I hear Tommo yelling behind me but there is no way I can turn around. 'Tommo, get out, don't fight!' I scream and then begin to cough from the smoke.

I am carried out to the front of the gaol and there is a terrible baying from the crowd which surges forward, shouting, 'Utu! Utu!'

The crowd is now all around me. My abductors lift me high above their heads while others push and strike at the howling mob, beating them back as frantic hands try to claw at me. If my captors let me go I will be kicked and torn apart by the angry mob. The posse abducting me force their way through the roaring crowd, shouting threats and using their fists, until we reach a horse-drawn cart. I am thrown into it while several of the Maori leap aboard, sitting upon my body and at the same time shouting and kicking at the crowd who now surround the cart, holding on to it.

Soon we are clear of the main mob though others continue to run after us and some to hurl stones. A shower of rocks hits the cart and also one of the Maori who sits upon my chest. He gives a gasp and is knocked senseless, slumping forward.

I am sure my end is near, but my most immediate concern is for Tommo. If the crowd gets hold of him they will tear him to pieces. I begin to sob for my twin, whom I shall never see again.

By now we are pulling away from the town of Kororareka. As we travel up a small hill I can see a great billow of black smoke coming from the gaol-house. The road is deep-rutted and the cart bounces badly so that my blouse, stiffened with the dried blood of the previous night, grates against my back which is soon again soaked. Tommo's turbanned bandage is also leaking blood which I can feel running down my neck. I have not drunk water since the previous night and know without it I will soon faint from exhaustion in the day's heat.

'Kahore o wai? Homai he wai moku,' I croak. Have you any water? Please give me some water! I beg in Maori, though I must repeat myself several times to be heard above the rattle of the cart. A bottle of water is held to my mouth and I drink greedily as it rattles against my teeth, but it is too soon removed. I feel much recovered, though sick at heart when I think of Tommo at the hands of the mob.

*

For over a week I am transported on the back of that cart, with no word of explanation from my captors. They give me food and water, but they do not engage in conversation with me. Fatigue and injury have dulled my mind and I am a passive enough prisoner. We have long since left the road and taken paths that lead through forest glades or cut through the tu-tu grass that often towers high above the cart.

For seven days we pass no human settlement but, as the shadows begin to fall on our eighth day, we come to a village beside a small mountain stream. The others climb down from the cart and I am left to lie alone. Soon children with big brown eyes and serious expressions come to look at me. They are for the most part naked. Each time I move in my chains they scatter like startled chickens. But they soon enough return to stare silently at me again. I daresay they have not seen a nigger before and I am to them as curious a sight as an unknown species of wild beast.

It is not long since the Maori have forsaken cannibalism and there is often talk that it is still practised in remote regions where the pakeha are afraid to go. Perhaps this will be my unhappy end, to be eaten at a great feast. I am almost resigned. The law will not find me here, and even if it should, the courts would treat me no better than the Maori. After the authorities have broken my neck they would feed me to the worms, which I think is no better than the cannibal's cooking pot.

In days past, the Maori believed that to eat your enemy made you strong. The chief must inherit the strength of the chief and all the others he has killed in battle and to do so he must drink their blood and swallow their eyes so that the spirits of his victims add to his power, his mana. All this Hammerhead Jack told me in the long days we spent together at sea. When my friend's eye was destroyed by Nestbyte, he explained that it was no great tragedy for it was the right eye and not the left. The godhead of a chief, and the spirit of the Maori, lives in the left eye. Had his left eye been destroyed, he would not have wished to survive, for he would have lost his mana.

From what I have observed of the white settlers and their soldiers and policemen, the Maori people will need all their strength if they are not to be reduced to the status of beggars and drunkards in their own country. I have seen what has been done to the Aborigines in Van Diemen's Land and hope that the same will not happen to the Maori.

Perhaps it is better after all that I be eaten in an ancient ceremony than die in ignominy. I would much prefer a warrior's sharp teeth to slow consumption by maggots. Despite my misery I smile to myself. After all, what Tommo calls Mary's white tablecloth religion is based on a good Sunday roast!

I can hear God sitting at the table of the Maori chief.

'Did you say a nice leg o' pork, my dear?' God asks the chief of the cannibals.

'No, Sir,' says the chief. 'This be a nice leg o' Hawk!'

But then my humour changes. I am too sore and uncomfortable not to feel pity for myself. I think about my neck, how it seems to have an affinity for the rope. I lift my manacled hands to touch the band of silver tissue, the bright scar caused by the wild man when I was seven years old. It is now a well-defined track where the hangman will neatly fit the final loop of hemp to break my neck, that is if Nottingham and his Auckland jury should catch up with me. What a sorry end I shall have either way.

When I took Tommo from Brodie's sly grog shop I was bitterly saddened by Mary's anger and banishment. And yet I had thought we might have a great adventure together and return to our mama with Tommo sober and both of us much experienced in the world. Now, in the late afternoon, with the shadows falling in a strange village, I think of how little luck poor Tommo has had. How his mongrels have followed us and how, through no wrongdoing of our own, our young lives will soon end: him burned to death in the prison or torn to pieces by a mob of angry savages, and me eaten by same.

The children are clambering more boldly upon the cart and some reach out and touch me, then pull their hands away quickly as though I have burnt their fingers. I ask for water and try to smile but they are completely taken aback at the sound of my voice. They leap wildly from the cart and scatter, the smaller ones fleeing helter-skelter, their tiny feet shooting back puffs of dust as they run, yelling in terror as if followed by a wild, black beast.