Where the Murray River Runs

by Darry Fraser

  Twenty

  Bendigo, next day

  James Anderson stood in Joseph Campbell’s office. His gut turned. He felt his mouth curl at the destruction. Minor, but its nascent threat, all too obvious, had taken hold. CeeCee’s little house was testament.

  His jaw clenched.

  ‘Only slightly frizzled, James, just like me.’ The elderly lawyer held up his right arm. His hand and forearm had been bandaged.

  The curtain Mr Campbell had used to smother the flames still lay crumpled on the floor. The desktop had scorch marks on it. Under the desk the lacquer had peeled off the floor boards and curled atop blackened soot. A warm breeze ruffled the remaining curtain through the hole where windows had been.

  James inhaled deeply a couple of times before speaking. ‘It’s beyond belief nothing more was damaged.’

  Mr Campbell nodded. ‘He dropped a match when he leapt up at me and that’s what started it off. My own lantern I set aside, thank God. I’d got most of the flames covered with the curtain.’

  ‘You were quick. And the window?’ James leaned out to check the rubble below.

  ‘I tossed the contents of the water urn once and went back for a second shot when it came right out of my hands.’ Mr Campbell laughed. ‘Felt a right fool.’

  ‘Pity it didn’t land on his head and kill him.’

  ‘Pity. But he will have a sore head.’ Mr Campbell picked up his brass ashtray. ‘Hit him for a six.’

  James turned to look at the heavy object in Mr Campbell’s hand. ‘Good God. That would down an elephant.’

  ‘As for what he took, it seems to be only Mrs Wilkin’s files.’

  ‘You think it was her husband?’ James asked.

  ‘I do. I did not see his face, as I told the constable.’

  James nodded, shrugged, a feeble attempt to curb his ire. ‘Ah well.’

  ‘But there is no mistaking the stench of the man. I know it to be him. And of course, the bastard was only about this high.’ He held his good arm at chest level. ‘The man stinks these days as if he rolls in dead carcasses. I’m not a medical man, but I’ve smelled that before. First a long time ago, when some lads came back from the Crimea, and since, after accidents on the goldfields, untreated injuries over the years. Some with the sugar disease get it. It’s gangrene. One of his limbs would be rotting.’

  ‘Good God, the man needs it taken off. Should be in hospital, not running around the countryside committing arson.’

  ‘It has probably sent him mad. It happens fast. He’d been acting more strangely since his wife died.’

  James shook his head. ‘It’s a wonder someone hasn’t taken him away for his own good. You’re sure it couldn’t have been anyone else?’

  Mr Campbell looked for his chair and sat heavily, holding his injured arm away from his body. ‘I am sure. There is no possible way it was another man.’

  ‘And you know where to find him?’

  Mr Campbell nodded. ‘His address is in the file. He and Mary lived in a little dwelling at the entrance to town on the Melbourne side. N Street. I forget if it had a number, but it’s the middle house in a row of three.’

  ‘I will pay a visit.’

  ‘Be careful, James.’ Mr Campbell frowned. ‘I warned Cecilia about him. It seems Wilkin does his best work in the dead of night.’

  ‘A coward.’ James flexed his shoulders. He recognised the heat building in his gut, the sweat breaking on his brow. Anger rolled through him as unrelenting as waves to the shore.

  ‘And a nasty one at that. As you know, his treatment of Mary was appalling. The law would not have stepped in, I am ashamed to say, because she came to me too late. Thank God for CeeCee. And you, James. But it was just too late for Mary.’

  ‘We will get her justice, Mr Campbell.’

  ‘Hmm. It might be best to get justice for this Ard O’Rourke fellow first. I don’t know what to make of that note. A clumsy attempt, at best, to distract the police, but they might not view it that way.’ Mr Campbell sucked in a breath and raised his injured arm again. ‘If you need me to represent him at any stage …’

  James nodded. ‘Thank you. I hope it won’t come to that.’ He waved his hand at the mess. ‘Have you organised a cleaner? Can I help you at all with anything?’

  ‘Miss Juno will be along shortly. I’ll let her deal with it, engage the right people.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll take my leave and get on with some pressing tasks.’ He headed for the door, shaking out his flexing hands. ‘Thank you, Mr Campbell.’

  Relax yourself. Relax.

  ‘James.’ Mr Campbell stopped him with a hand, palm out. ‘Wilkin might be a coward, but he’s not stupid. Watch your every step. He might have friends, and there are many others who don’t like the work you and Miss Seymour undertake. Be careful.’

  James Anderson nodded. ‘I will. I’ll be very careful. I always am. Good day.’

  He left Mr Campbell at his desk and headed outside. Looking up to the sky, he realised heat was building in the day. He climbed into his carriage and snapped the reins.

  N Street, I’m coming to check your housing properties.

  Twenty-One

  Bendigo, three days later

  Ard glanced at Sam. ‘You’re serious.’

  He lifted the axe and it landed with a thunk into a sawn-off tree limb. Thank God his head felt better than it had the last few days. It felt good to be doing hard work. Sweat dripped down his back and snaked down his chest to his pants.

  Sam scowled. ‘I’m serious. We’ve got Pie, and now Bolter, and I say we should go in the next day or so.’

  ‘I can’t go yet. This place—the orchard. Haven’t heard from my father or Liam.’ Ard swung the axe again and the thick log split with a crack.

  Sam stepped clear of the shower of splinters. ‘They’re trees, Ard, you water ’em a bit and they look after themselves.’

  Ard shook his head, and bent to stack the cut logs. ‘Not this time. Neither of the brothers are here to look after the place. And don’t forget,’ Ard said, swinging again, ‘Mr Ling is on the trail. I don’t dare leave the place empty.’ The axe thwacked, a log split.

  Sam swiped a hand through his hair. He leaned on his axe, settled on the handle while the iron wedge sunk into the sandy loam. ‘You’ve come back different Ard. You used to have fun.’

  Ard rolled another log over, stood it up, lined it up and brought the axe around with a whistle. Thunnk. He did the same with another, and then one more. He dropped the axe, gathered up the kindling and the bigger cuts and threw them piece by piece to the stack. He wiped a forearm over his face, reached across to his shirt flung over a tree branch and swiped the dust and sweat off his chest.

  ‘I heard about Mary, Sam. I only had a letter from her just days before I got one from Linley telling me she died. It cuts me deep. Her dying …’

  ‘Yeah, Mary, poor bugger.’ Sam kicked at the dirt at his feet. ‘But her—’

  Ard cut him off. ‘It made me think. I got things to do, and no time to waste anymore. Got things to do. I reckon time for fun’s over for now.’ He ignored the deepening frown creasing his mate’s brow. ‘Things to tidy up. Make something of myself. Find work, or make work, squeeze every last drop out of this depression.’

  ‘You can’t force it to happen, Ard. My pa’s got me on half wages, work is so slow, I’m not even at the smithy’s anymore. And I know Pa’s paying me and not himself. He’s getting paid in meat and eggs, if that.’ Sam shook his head. ‘Work’s hard to come by here.’

  Ard shrugged into the shirt, grabbed the axe and headed back to the stone hut. ‘And I have to see Linley,’ he said over his shoulder.

  Sam threw his hands in the air. ‘Linley? Well, all right then.’

  Inside, Ard went to a pitcher and downed a mug of cool water taken from the channel earlier in the morning. Sam hadn’t known anything of Ard’s dalliance with Mary, no one had, and he’d keep it that way. ‘I’ll go to town and check at the telegraph office. I
don’t expect to hear from Pa any time yet, but Liam for sure.’

  ‘And what’ll that give you—half an answer? You’ll still want to wait.’

  ‘Liam can get a message to Pa downriver from Swan Hill quicker than I can get a letter back. He might have both answers already.’

  Sam leaned on the table. ‘Reckon they’ll sell to the Chinaman?’ Ard shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps. If the price is right.’ He grabbed a clean shirt hanging on a nail above his cot. ‘You coming?’

  Midafternoon and James pulled up at the corner of N Street. The dirt road, pocked with old holes wearing away to bulldust, was a hazard to carriages. He’d get out and walk, see if he could locate the house.

  Mr Campbell couldn’t give a number of the house, but he’d said Wilkin’s was in a row of three. House were singles, or clusters, not more than eight altogether. It shouldn’t be hard to find.

  He changed his mind about walking. He was easy to remember. His height, above average at six foot two, his bright red hair and big build gave nosey neighbours reason to remember him. He sat a while, loosened his hands on the reins, surveyed the road just ahead. He could navigate around the holes, ease the carriage along and have plenty of time to guide the horse around any trouble. Looping the reins once more in his hands, he gee-upped the horse, tugged his hat a little lower and idled the carriage down the street.

  There, on the left. Three scummy-looking tiny houses, and the one in the middle the worse for wear. Slowing right up, he took a long look at the boarded-up windows, and the proximity to its neighbours. Barely three foot each side. Stripped logs weighed down old iron sheets that served as a roof. The precarious verandah hardly looked safe to stand under. A door at the front, not two paces from the road, had a cross beam on it, preventing access from the street. The place could have been abandoned.

  There would be a back door … As he drove past he saw no signs anybody still lived there. A sour churn in his gut had bile rise to the back of his throat. How could the occupants of the other dwellings not help but hear Mary’s screams for help? If she could indeed scream.

  He drove on, careful not to slow too much, or to stop, or to openly study. Dusk was still a few hours off, darkness not long after that. There was still time to do what he needed to do.

  He would be back.

  Gareth Wilkin flattened himself inside his cart, fumbling for something under the hessian sacks in the back. He was at the turn-off to the old diggings, not far from where he knew the O’Rourke orchard to be.

  And be buggered if that isn’t O’Rourke itself riding off to God-knows-where with a mate. Shit. Thought he’d still be a guest of the coppers.

  Luck was on his side; he hadn’t been seen. No doubt his fate would have been a great blow to the face with a clenched fist had O’Rourke spotted him. Perhaps worse.

  Squeamish, he heaved himself gingerly back into the driver’s seat and settled as comfortably as possible, scorched bits aside. His scalp was raw under the singed loss of hair and weeping burns irritated his neck at his collar. Melted shirt buttons left their print in suppurating sores down his chest. Butter was the thing he was told, though he couldn’t bear to touch the wounds. Salt baths someone had said, but it stung like a bugger when he’d tried it on his arm, so he wasn’t doing that again.

  Watching the two men on horses canter back towards town, he straightened up in the seat of the cart and flicked the reins. The scraggly beast pulling his cart moved forward as if he’d momentarily forgotten what he was supposed to do. Over his shoulder, Gareth watched the disappearing riders and then glanced at the bunches of kindling in the back. The tin of Evening Star kerosene sat close by. Not a full tin, mind, but enough for the job.

  His head was flaming, and his throat dry, but he pressed on. He needed a drink of hot tea, laced with some rum, but he’d see the job done. He’d burn the bastard out of house and home just like he’d done to the stupid bitches who decided to get in his way. Then he’d go after that other bloke, the big redheaded bastard. Whatever his name was.

  In the driveway now, he flicked the reins again, hard. The horse and cart jolted forward but refused to work any harder. Frustrated, sore and blurry-eyed, he hauled the cart around the back of the hut, sure to be unseen from the road. Sliding carefully off the seat, he stood for a moment, sparing his left foot, while the dizzy spell abated. Then he reached into the back and drew out a couple of bundles of kindling.

  Limping, his shirt chafing the raw burns, he carried the two bundles to the nearest fruit trees. He limped back and carried two more, placing them further down the rows. Another two and more agonised steps later, he returned for the tin of kerosene.

  Intent on opening it, he stopped and looked out over the trees. He hadn’t thought clearly. He stood at the cart, worrying a hand over his face. How was he going to light the fire and get out without being seen? As soon as flames lit up, someone somewhere would see—and see him.

  Oh shit.

  But he had to do it. He’d come this far. He’d wipe that boy off the face of the earth.

  Squinting skywards, he reckoned the afternoon sun gave him about an hour. Time enough to stack a few bundles of kindling further down the orchard. There was another track down yonder; the Chinamen used it to service their own blocks, and it trailed past this one. So he could pick it up and get back to town without too much notice.

  That’s what he’d do. Take the cart down the block, amble on by as if he’d just wandered off track.

  The breeze was slight but visible in the foliage, and heading north. It would work. It was a good idea he just had. The burns chafed anew as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. He took out the makings for a smoke, rolled a clumsy one, and went to light it.

  Shit, fella! Your brains are porridge. Kerosene.

  He shook his head, tucked the unlit smoke behind his ear, picked up the reins and headed into the orchard. Splashing fuel on each pile of kindling he dropped, then trailing a little from tree to tree, he made it to the last row before the liquid finally ran out. He slung the empty tin into the back of the cart and stopped on the dirt track that ran along the bottom of O’Rourke’s patch.

  Over paddocks of cabbage and some other leafy green good-for-nothing-but-pigs food, he could just make out people in the far distance. He didn’t see anyone giving him any interest. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down his chest and back, stinging like a bastard in the seeping scrapes. Easing the cart a few yards along at a leisurely pace, he stopped, carefully climbed out of the wagon and staggered over to the trees to take a piss. Or that’s what he hoped it looked like if anyone was watching.

  Shaking hands fumbled with the matchbook, and he squatted awkwardly to strike a match. He put its tiny flame to the trickle of kero snaking a skinny little track from one bundle to the next. He stumbled back. He had a bit of time, kero could be slow to take …

  But it wasn’t.

  Gareth just managed to make it back to the cart and pull himself up to the seat. He gee-upped the skittish horse and heard a crackle of leaves. A look over his shoulder and he saw smoke rising from the foot of a tree, and then watched as licks of low flame travelled to the next. He glanced about. Still nobody around. He kept his drive steady.

  I’ve done it.

  Twenty-Two

  Bendigo

  Ard sat on the steps out the front of the telegraph office, Liam’s reply in his hands. The thin paper crackled, the handwritten transcript very clear.

  Sam leaned on the post, tipped back his hat and stared into the afternoon sky. ‘They look like rain clouds, but I’d lay a bet they’re not.’

  Ard glanced up. ‘You’re right. No rain yet.’

  ‘And that looks like Mrs Green over there talking to old Mr Thomas.’

  Ard lifted a chin. ‘Yeah. Neighbours.’ He read the note again.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind getting one of them ice-making machines.’

  ‘What would you use an ice machine for?’

  Sam scuffed the bo
ards underfoot. ‘They’re interesting, is all.’ He sat beside Ard. ‘You gonna tell me what your uncle said or do I have to keep making conversation?’

  Ard drew in a breath. He waved the telegram. ‘Liam says they’ll talk it over, and if the offer’s still good, we can sell.’

  Sam folded his arms. ‘Mr Ling might take his time with that.’

  Ard’s boot heel tapped out an impatient beat. ‘I can’t wait that long.’

  ‘Why do you have to wait before you see Linley? She’s only—’

  ‘She’s gone somewhere. With Miss CeeCee. I don’t know where.’

  Sam frowned. ‘Hadn’t heard they’d gone.’

  ‘Only left last few days.’

  ‘So what’s the hurry? If you don’t know where she is …’

  ‘There’s something I have to do. To say.’

  Sam stayed silent for a few moments, his frown deepening. ‘You going to marry her?’

  ‘No.’ Ard shook his head, exasperated. ‘Yes. No. She won’t have me.’

  Sam scratched his neck. ‘I knew you were sweet on her—’

  ‘Ballocks you knew.’

  ‘And not only me, O’Rourke. Half the flamin’ town knows you’re sweet on her. Known since you were eight years old.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Ard conceded. ‘But now I’m serious about it. And I can’t find her. She’s angry at me, I know that much.’

  ‘No point chasing a woman who’s mad at you.’ Sam tapped a fist to Ard’s shoulder.

  ‘If you’re talking about my sister, all I can say is Maggie saw sense leaving you behind to go to Renmark with Ma and Pa.’

  Sam’s brows nearly met in the middle. ‘I wasn’t talking about Maggie.’ He waited a bit, then, ‘But if you’ve got a message for me from her …’

  ‘I haven’t.’ Ard had not pressed either Maggie about Sam, nor Sam about Maggie. Their trouble to work out. He had his own. But the look on Sam’s face was woeful. The last time Ard had seen his sister she’d been none too happy either. He reached out and gripped his friend’s shoulder. ‘Sorry, mate. Write her a letter.’