Night Ride into Danger

by Jackie French

  The horses began to move, stepping slowly. Jem waited for Mr Smith to order him to go faster, but he too must have realised how precarious their position was. And even at this speed the progress seemed different with four horses instead of five.

  Then they were past the mud. Jem clicked again to make the horses go faster, then almost immediately pulled back on the reins as a vast flock of long-legged shadows sped from the trees and across the road, silent except for a faint thumping of giant feet.

  Emus. The horses flicked their tails and tossed their heads. Mr Smith swore beside him. ‘Of all the benighted journeys, this must be the worst . . .’ he muttered.

  The birds kept coming, emerging from the darkness, as if this was their land and they didn’t deign to notice the waiting coach and horses. There must be a hundred of them at least, thought Jem.

  At last the giant birds were gone, and the horses hardly waited for Jem’s click to break into a swinging trot.

  The team knew the routine better than him, Jem realised with relief — or they did till the Halfway House, anyway. They must find their new configuration strange, but trotting along that road was familiar and reassuring at least. He found he was driving automatically too, his hand easy on the heavy reins, just enough pressure as they rounded the corners or where the road narrowed between trees for the horses to feel a human was in control.

  The road sloped down to a gully now. The team slowed even without Jem’s guidance. His foot pushed the brake slowly, locking the wheels, so the coach slid rather than rolled downhill. They splashed through a foot of water and he eased off the brake again as the horses pulled them upwards with no strain at all.

  At least the next part of the run was level, though hills rose on either side, sheltering vast, shallow Lake George to the west and Lake Bathurst on the other side of them.

  Jem shivered and pulled his hat down more firmly as the wind gathered, strong enough to buffet the coach slightly. It always seemed windy on the flats here, either with icy teeth or an oven’s breath in summer, complete with flies. But at least the wind had blown the fog to the thinnest sifting of flour in the night air. The branches sliced the lamplight on the track before him.

  ‘How is Paw?’ he asked the man at his side tightly. He didn’t dare try and look behind to see.

  Mr Smith grabbed the lap belt to steady himself, then leaned over the edge of the coach, twisting to push back the curtains at the window.

  ‘Same as before,’ he said shortly, righting himself with a grunt. ‘The señorita is wiping his face with her handkerchief and the girl is rubbing his hands with hers to warm ’em. Don’t worry, lad. They wouldn’t be doing that if he was dead.’

  Dead, thought Jem. It was impossible to think what life would be like without Paw. But it had been impossible to think of life without Maw either, till she was resting under the white gravestone in the cemetery.

  Paw wasn’t going to die! And even if . . . even if he was all alone he’d manage, he told himself. No orphanage for Jem Donovan. One of the coaching houses would take him for a stable boy, and he’d rise to Whip one day . . .

  If he managed to get them all to Goulburn now. Cobb & Co wouldn’t employ a boy who’d been fool enough to try to drive thirty miles with a four-in-hand in the dark and fail, even if he did have pistols pointed at him.

  Pistols. Jem glanced down. They were still in Mr Smith’s belt.

  Mr Smith saw the direction of his look and smiled. ‘I can have ’em pointed at your head before you can draw breath. Or pointed at anyone inside the coach too, just in case you think you might pull up at the Halfway House after all, or try to make me think the way goes through the paddocks. There were no gates to open on the way down, so there’ll be none on the way back either.’

  ‘You must have took the daytime coach,’ said Jem. ‘There’s two gates between Sherwin Flats and Goulburn that are sometimes shut at night.’

  ‘One of the other passengers can open them if they are. You’re going to stay up here, and so am I.’

  ‘You don’t think I’d run away and leave Paw in the coach, do you?’ demanded Jem. ‘Or the passengers either? What would I gain by that?’

  ‘Well, I’m thinking a bright lad like you might have worked out that the traps would be interested in a man who’d demand to be driven at pistol point. They might be interested in my trunk, too. You might be thinking there’s a reward. Of course, I could escape on one of the horses if you tried to run, but I’d have to leave the trunk behind.’

  ‘Your trunk full of books?’

  Mr Smith grinned, his too-white teeth shining in the lamplight. ‘Valuable things, books. Got all the learning of the world in them. But most traps can’t read, so they wouldn’t appreciate them. Be a sheer waste of good books, letting the traps get into that trunk.’

  ‘I’m not going to scamper off into the bush,’ said Jem shortly. ‘I need to get Paw to Goulburn, and if that means you and your trunk get to the train on time, then it’s just your luck.’

  Mr Smith gazed at him. ‘It’s your dad who’s a lucky one. I had a son like you, once.’

  ‘Did he die? I’m sorry,’ said Jem.

  ‘No, he’s alive. They took me from him, not him from me. One day I may even get to see him again. And I’ll be proud as punch if he’s grown up to be like you. Ah, that looks like the Halfway House now.’

  Mr Smith glanced to the horizon, where the moon peered up like a slab of cheese. ‘We’re still making good time,’ he calculated.

  ‘The horses think this is the end of their run,’ said Jem. ‘They’ve speeded up.’

  ‘Well, they can just keep speeding till we’re past. I’m not sounding the bugle to let anyone know we’re coming, either. I wasn’t looking forward to hiding my face again anyway, and that’s the truth.’

  Jem glanced at him, then turned back quickly to the horses, cracking the whip so they kept up the pace instead of slowing for the posting house. ‘Was that why you pretended to be asleep at Boro and Sherwin Flats? So you could keep your hat over your face?’

  Mr Smith laughed. He seemed strangely exultant up there in the wind and the starlight, with only Jem for company. ‘Noticed that, did you? Clever lad.’

  ‘Why didn’t you want people to see you?’

  ‘Memories,’ said Mr Smith, as the horses automatically slowed for the turn. ‘Other people’s memories, and mine too. Keep those horses steady, lad. Don’t let them have their heads.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Jem shortly as they passed a cottage, its windows dimly lit by its fireplace and what must have been a slushie lamp or two. And there was the Halfway House, its windows bright with lamps and a good fire and its stables and courtyard lantern lit too, the grooms waiting for the signal.

  The horses slowed, but they were a good team, waiting for the driver’s guidance. Within moments the coaching house was behind them.

  Someone knocked on the side of the coach. Juanita poked her head out of the window nearest Jem, then a good half of her body, kneeling on the seat and clinging onto the leather curtain. ‘Jem? Your dad’s woke up!’ Her words were half-swallowed in the wind.

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘He’s got a broken leg and had a blow on the head,’ Juanita yelled. ‘Of course he’s not all right. But he’s making sense when he talks and he can move his fingers and toes. Sis won’t let him test anything else.’

  Jem felt tears sting his eyes. But he was not going to cry. ‘Thank you!’ he yelled.

  ‘Your dad wanted to know who was driving. He was afraid it was Mr Smith. I told him it was you.’

  ‘What? But he’ll worry!’

  ‘He’s not worried at all. He smiled and said, “Good boy,” then shut his eyes again. Sis says he’s sleeping, not unconscious any more.’

  ‘Tell her thank you,’ Jem managed.

  ‘All right.’ The head with its two plaits, still neat under the travelling hat, vanished.

  Jem gazed out at the horses’ ears and the road in front, unev
enly lit by the two lights, and let the tears roll down his face.

  CHAPTER 6

  BAIL UP!

  The horses had steadied, as if they knew they had another long haul ahead of them now, though Jem doubted they’d ever carried a coach along this road. It was up to him to guide the team now, to signal when to turn, or dodge fallen branches. The trees flickered by, lit by the lamps for a few brief breaths, then gone.

  The stars the fog had hidden had begun to turn in their bright nightly wheel. The ground was drier here. Rain mostly seemed to miss the Goulburn Plain. Even the sea mists they called Araluen Billy, grey as an old man’s beard, rarely got so far inland. The ground rose slowly, the horses just beginning to labour, their breath white, the cleared land once again giving way to bush.

  The wind had dropped. The mist shifted here and there, turning the trees to ghosts, their limbs faintly moving as if restless enough for the vast trunks to move about the bush. The land was silent, except for the hush of trees, the clatter of hooves, the scrape and bump of wheels. It were as if the entire world had vanished, except for the brief quarter circle lit by their lamps.

  Somewhere along the road lay morning and Goulburn, the giant metal train on its tracks, the crowds of people. But here on this dark, deserted road it was difficult to believe they existed.

  Usually by now he’d be singing to Paw. It hadn’t just been to keep Paw awake, Jem realised, but to drive away the feeling that this coach was a minute speck, not just on the landscape but in amongst the almost timeless trees.

  How long had each tree been there? How many lifetimes? Trees this big must have grown even as the First Fleet had sailed into the harbour. How many changes had these trees seen? Had they watched the natives’ campfires with the same brooding gaze that they had now?

  A woman’s scream from inside the coach sliced the silence.

  Mr Smith straightened, suddenly alert. ‘What is it now?’ he muttered. ‘Dashed women! More trouble than a basketful of wildcats. Keep driving, lad,’ he added.

  ‘Maybe . . . something . . . has happened to Paw.’

  ‘If your dad had hung his hat on the pearly gates the women might be sobbing in there, but they wouldn’t be screaming.’

  The scream came again, more like a shriek now.

  ‘Darned women,’ Mr Smith swore again. ‘What is it now? Can’t be a snake in there, not in this cold, unless they found one sleeping under the seats. Probably seen a spider.’

  Juanita’s head appeared again. ‘Stop the coach!’ she shouted.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ cried Jem.

  ‘It’s Mrs Pickle.’

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’

  Suddenly Juanita’s head was replaced by her sister’s. ‘Pull up!’ Señorita Rodriques ordered. ‘Now! Mrs Pickle is having a baby.’

  Mr Smith put his head in his hands. It took a moment for Jem to realise he was laughing. He looked back up at Jem. ‘That just about puts the cream on the cake, doesn’t it?’

  He leaned past Jem to speak to Señorita Rodriques. ‘You tell Mrs Pickle she’s welcome to have as many babies as she likes, any time and any place, but we’re not stopping the coach for her.’

  ‘But you have to! The poor woman can’t give birth in a bouncing coach! Not in the dark. We need hot water and light — a fire at the very least . . .’

  ‘Then she can wait till Goulburn to get them,’ yelled Mr Smith.

  ‘Babies don’t wait!’ shouted Señorita Rodriques.

  ‘Then if it comes it will all be over, won’t it? And she can cuddle the brat till Goulburn. Keep driving, lad,’ Mr Smith repeated to Jem.

  Mrs Pickle shrieked again, even louder this time. Jem could hear Mr Pickle calling her name, trying to be reassuring but sounding terrified instead.

  Suddenly Jem realised that Señorita Rodriques had lost her Spanish accent about the time the coach had tipped. What was it Ma Grimsby had said about a mystery? A mystery man with pistols, a married lady not so much fat as expecting, a señorita who might not be Spanish at all . . .

  But there was no time to wonder now. He had to pull over. He looked from side to side, waiting for a clearing, but one with some fallen timber too, so they could light a quick fire of swaggie’s wood.

  ‘Don’t even think of stopping, boy,’ ordered Mr Smith, as an even longer scream came from inside.

  Jem ignored him. Was Mr Smith really desperate enough to shoot one passenger after another till he got Jem to drive on? Surely not . . .

  All at once he glimpsed movement to one side of him. Jem moved to shield the shadowed figure from the light as it silently climbed onto the roof above them.

  Juanita! She lunged, her hand darting down to grab one of the pistols from Mr Smith’s belt.

  ‘What the . . .’ Mr Smith turned to seize her, but she was gone, dangling for one heart-stopping breath off the side of the coach till two firm hands in green lace gloves grabbed her legs and helped her in.

  Mr Smith drew his other pistol and leaned down to the window on his side. ‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, girl,’ he snarled. ‘But you’re not going to shoot me with that.’

  ‘No. But I will.’ Mrs Pickle’s sweating face appeared from the other window next to Jem. Her hat was gone. Her hair stuck up like a birch broom. Her shawls had vanished too. She panted as she leaned against the side of the coach. But the look on her face was sheer determination as she pointed the pistol at Mr Smith past Jem. ‘No one’s going to stop my baby coming safely, not you or anyone, and I don’t care what I have to do to make it happen.’

  ‘You won’t shoot either,’ said Mr Smith, though his voice lacked conviction now. ‘And what’s to stop you hitting our young driver here?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll shoot all right,’ gasped Mrs Pickle, tears wet on her face. ‘And I’ll hit you, too. I used to pot ducks with my brothers. They missed half the time but I never did. I reckon I can’t miss at this range.’ Mrs Pickle suddenly began to groan. She bent down, pistol still in her hand, and let out an even longer scream. But it was barely over before she had the pistol aimed again.

  ‘Put that pistol away,’ she ordered Mr Smith. ‘You’d shoot a woman giving birth, would you? You do that and every man worth his salt will tear you apart, starting with my Horace.’

  ‘Mrs Pickle, calm yourself —’ Mr Smith began.

  ‘Calm myself!’ she gasped, leaning against the window for support. Jem had to crane around to see her. ‘I’ve lost three babies halfway to term afore this one. That’s why I wanted my mam when I began to feel poorly, except it seems my time’s come early.’ She paused to get her breath then added grimly, ‘But I ain’t losing this child. If we don’t pull over I’ll shoot you in the face and there ain’t nobody in the world who’d blame me.’

  ‘Pull over,’ ordered Mr Smith, still gazing at Mrs Pickle. ‘You’ll get your fire and boiling water, woman. Just put that pistol away.’

  ‘I’ll put it away when you give the lad the other one,’ panted Mrs Pickle, her face vanishing as she leaned back on the seat, her husband’s arms around her. ‘You let my baby live and there won’t be one of us who’ll turn you in, I’ll see to that. If my baby’s safe, then you’ll be safe too.’

  Mr Smith just stared at her. Jem hauled slowly on the reins, then reached over and plucked the pistol from the man’s belt. He held it a moment, unsure what to do with it. Juanita appeared again, leaning out of the other window. Jem passed the pistol to her willingly, then pulled on the reins again. The horses stopped just as there was another agonising shriek from Mrs Pickle.

  Mr Smith glanced at the moon again, bouncing among shreds of cloud now. ‘You know how long it takes a baby to be born, lad?’

  ‘No,’ said Jem.

  ‘Me neither, though I’m guessing it might not be long, the way she’s screaming. Or maybe I’m hoping.’

  There’s no one here who knows how long it takes for a baby to be born, Jem realised suddenly. Señorita Rodriques wasn’t married. She wouldn’t even hav
e helped her neighbours have babies, not going from theatre to theatre for so many years. And this was Mrs Pickle’s first.

  How did a baby get born? All Jem knew was that the process needed other women — women who knew exactly what to do.

  ‘I reckon we have an hour to spare if we’re to make the train, but not much more,’ said Mr Smith tautly.

  ‘The horse’s will be fresher after a rest,’ offered Jem.

  ‘There’s that,’ said Mr Smith, as Mr Pickle helped his panting wife from the coach.

  ‘Sir . . . if the baby takes longer to come, you could still make it on one of the horses. Or load whatever . . . books . . . you can carry on one of the other horses, too —’

  ‘A tired horse can’t carry many . . . books,’ said Mr Smith. ‘Let’s you and I get that fire going, lad, and heat up a billy. That’s the only part of birthing a baby I know about, though what the women do with the boiling water I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You’re . . . you’re not going to shoot anyone?’ asked Jem hesitantly.

  ‘Not without my pistols. And no, I’m not going to see if your dad has a shotgun hidden under the seat either. Mrs Pickle is right. Getting that baby born is the most important thing tonight.’

  ‘More important than you catching the train?’

  Mr Smith regarded him in the lamplight. ‘I’ve chewed up a good bit of my life already, lad. That baby will have all its life to live, if things go well.’

  Jem blinked, puzzled. Did Mr Smith mean he might die if he didn’t catch the train? But before he could ask another question Mr Smith was already moving. ‘Come on, lad. You see to the horses while I find some dry tinder. Thank goodness we have the torches to get a fire burning fast,’ he added, as another scream floated in the darkness. ‘We’re going to need it.’

  CHAPTER 7

  WAITING

  He couldn’t leave the team harnessed and sweating, getting colder and colder standing still while a baby was born.

  Jem unhitched the horses and slipped off their bridles, but left their collars on, then grabbed the rags kept under the seat and hobbled each horse’s two front hooves in a figure of eight cloth quickly and efficiently, so they could shuffle around and graze but not get too far away. The hobbles wouldn’t last long, but hopefully they wouldn’t need to. He gathered up a few loose branches that might get tangled in the rags.