The Making of Martin Sparrow

by Peter Cochrane

  ‘He’s bedridden.’

  ‘We’ll see you safe to his patch, swift as we can.’

  48

  Having delivered Sparrow and Bea Faa into the safekeeping of the constables, Catley and Moowut’tin headed north on the Branch, deeper into the gorge, in search of the duckbill in situ et in vivo, while Mackie’s party rested through the remains of the day and slept warm enough, and dry, through the night.

  The next morning Mackie declared himself fit enough to trek to Joe’s and they set off downriver, forcing a track above the flood line and resting every hour, the rests lengthening as the trudging took its toll.

  The journey took the better part of three days, and it was late in the day when they reached the lower Branch and walked on to Joe’s patch and made for his cabin.

  They found Joe in his bed, much diminished. He had lost the capacity to speak.

  The girl sat on the bed and took his hand and tears ran down Joe’s cheeks. He tried to talk but his speech was slow and slurred, a word here and there and otherwise garbled sounds and his limits in this regard filled him with anguish.

  ‘He got up for the necessaries and he took a turn,’ said Freddie, ‘and I told him, I said Joe, you are gunna break my heart.’

  ‘What’d he say?’ said Cuff.

  ‘He don’t like his predicament. He gets angry.’

  Joe heard this and, plainly, he understood. ‘Hmmmm,’ he said. The wound in his forehead was scabby now, black and crusty. He looked so worn and so sad. Bea wiped away the tears on his cheeks and with the back of her fingers she stroked the stubble on his chin and Joe put his hand to hers and held it to his cheek. He was panting, the upset stressing his heart.

  The company looked on, lost for words.

  Mackie found his eyes drawn to the curve of Bea’s neck. Her hair was tied as ever in a knot at the nape and held there, for the most part, with that long wooden pin, the tip carved as a feather. She wore that hairpin exactly as her mother did, long ago. The memory put a shudder through him. He felt the need to retreat and did so. He sat himself on the ladder-back chair by the table, the scene in the recess like a painted tableau.

  Outside the goat called Beauty and the dog called Amicus Amico had took to play and the sounds of their scampering carried to the company indoors. Freddie was happy to be diverted. He stood in the doorway watching, a hand upon the low-set lintel. He was pleased he’d yarded the fowls for he was unsure of the dog in that regard. ‘You be gentle with my Beauty,’ he said. But he was not truly concerned for he knew play when he saw it and he knew stalking too.

  Sparrow was bound for the doorway when Mackie beckoned him sit. He sat hunched, his hands clasped between his knees, sensing something bad.

  Mackie spoke softly. ‘You will tell that boy’s father what happened, every detail.’

  ‘I already said I would.’ Sparrow did not want to revisit the subject. He heard Freddie chuckling at the door, saw Bea patting Joe’s hand. ‘She says I can be here, the pup too. I can help, I’ll work, hard.’

  He wanted to scream it out loud, he wanted to say it. Griffin was doin’ her and I killed him and now Joe’s an invalid and I can help. That’s what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t. He knew he could never say that, not least because he was in enough trouble already, the boat, and Jug, and the stolen dog – a trinity of troubles, all that and more. If only he could say it he could explain, he could tell the chief constable: Griffin was doin’ her and I killed him and we’re a good pair, her and me, and the pup too, she likes the pup.

  ‘Whatever happened to Miss Happ?’ said Mackie.

  ‘Who?

  ‘The strumpet.’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ said Sparrow. He was shocked to hear himself declare he didn’t care about Biddie Happ and to know it was true.

  ‘You will tell the doctor everything.’

  ‘I will, I swear I will, I did no wrong.’

  Mackie looked hard at Sparrow. ‘A piece of advice.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t say you did no wrong, not to Thomas Woody. Whatever the rights or wrongs, his boy is dead because of you, is he not?’

  Sparrow could but nod. He thought the forewarning good advice. He thought best to say no more even though he wanted to insist he did not force that boy into the water nor did he conjure that bull shark, nor did he in any way cause the terrible happenchance of shark and boy that followed.

  ‘You have your own patch to farm, and debts to meet, have you forgotten that?’ said Mackie.

  ‘Forgive the debt and you can have my patch. I will sign a paper, I will sign over to you,’ said Sparrow.

  Mackie sat, silent.

  ‘I ain’t cut out for . . . bein’ alone,’ said Sparrow. He was going to say he wasn’t cut out for endless toil but he didn’t because he knew that wasn’t quite true. He knew, now, that he could toil hard if he was toiling for Bea, and Amicus Amico.

  At the bedside the girl stood to make way for Cuff, who sat with Joe and took hold of his hand, noting the tears that welled in the old soldier’s eyes. ‘My good friend,’ he said.

  Joe’s face was set, his lips pressed together, breathing hard and loud through his nose, trying to summon up the words he needed but no longer having the wherewithal to speak whatever was in his mind, the strange moaning sound indecipherable. His head dropped and he slumped there, propped on cushions, ashamed to look up, his fists closed hard.

  Cuff wrapped his fingers around Joe’s fist. ‘Is that all he can say?’ he said to Bea.

  She nodded.

  He turned his attention back to Joe, wondered what, if anything, Joe had understood. He took but a moment to compose his thoughts.

  ‘Joe . . . Joe, look at me now,’ he said. Joe lifted his head, his eyes wide. ‘You’ll come good Joe, you just gotta . . . take your time, y’understand?’

  Joe closed his eyes, the tears welled there in the rims. He nodded.

  ‘You are a good man Joe and we’ll see you right. Won’t we, Alister? ’

  ‘Aye, yes.’

  ‘Alright then,’ said Cuff. ‘You rest up, my good friend.’

  Sparrow leant forward, across the table, and whispered: ‘I can help here, I know I can.’

  It was midafternoon and Cuff was hungry. ‘You got a bird we can eat?’ he said to Freddie.

  Freddie weighed the situation, recalling Mr Mackie’s generosity. ‘I got a big ol’ boiler, and I got potatoes for just such a occasion, or for winter, whatever come first.’

  ‘Seems we beat winter by a comfortable margin.’

  The girl took no part in the meal at the table. Instead she sat with Joe. She fed him a corn broth enhanced with poultry bones and the fat from the pan, now and then taking a spoonful for herself as she listened to the table talk. She heard Cuff speak of the killings on the Branch, the shot woman and the crucified men – horrible doings she’d seen for herself. They spoke of Reuben Peskett’s aptitude for such doings. They mused as to the governor’s dim view of killing the savages in ‘cool blood’, so called.

  Sparrow could summon no interest in these worldly matters. He no longer felt languid and lazy. He marvelled at that. If only he could stay here he might be safe and happy. He no longer wanted to bolt for the other side; he was inclined to think Mr Catley’s account of the piratical commonweal might be true. He wanted no part of that, and whether or not there was a big river, a river of the first magnitude, or a lake where whales were seen to spout, who could know? What he knew for certain was Bea Faa was back on Joe’s patch and she intended to stay. That he knew for certain. He recalled her words: ‘We are perhaps a formidable pair.’ Pair.

  When Joe was done eating Bea took the bowl to the table and set it down. ‘What of the garden?’ she said to Freddie.

  ‘We can sow cabbage right now, and potatoes for summer, fresh dung and straw to mix, old rotten dung’s no good, not for potatoes.’

  ‘Are you right till harvest?’ said Mackie.

  ‘I think we
are,’ said Freddie.

  ‘Well then, all’s well with the world,’ said Cuff.

  ‘I sure hope so, but there’s the weather and the savages and the grub, you just never know with the grub less you plant awful early. The grub’s one big fly in the ointment.’

  The girl stepped outside. Sparrow followed. Freddie kept talking, farm talk.

  It was almost sunset and the clouds to the north sat flat, as if on a straight edge, and they were lit bright pink on the underside and the sky beneath was the palest petal blue.

  ‘I have to go back, tell the doctor,’ said Sparrow.

  ‘You have to say what happened,’ said Bea.

  ‘Will you take care of Amicus?’

  ‘I like that young dog.’

  ‘I hope to come back if I can, if you want me.’

  ‘You think the doctor will forgive you?’

  ‘Hope’s all I got.’

  ‘The little songbird in the well of our troubled soul.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hope.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘I will take Amicus,’ she said.

  ‘I can help you work the patch, when I come back.’

  ‘He may say you murdered his boy.’

  ‘I will tell him the truth, that’s all I can do, I never murdered anybody except . . .’

  ‘Well now you know,’ said the girl.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How to do it.’

  That surprised Sparrow. She said it like it was a knack or a trade, once got never lost. And she was right. A small axe brought down with the full force of the forearms would split a man’s skull like a hunting blade through lard.

  49

  They were a long day on the river, some of that laid over for the duration of the ebb tide in full flow. Once back at the ridge Mackie was in no mood to waste time. He marched Sparrow to the gaol and delivered him to the custodianship of Hat Thistlewaite and promptly sent for Dr Woody.

  Sparrow watched the evening light slip from the slot window, high in the rear wall of the gaol, the leather costrel in his lap, the soggy seam rendering his britches a little damp. His heart began to bang in his chest when he heard footsteps in the corridor and saw the company attending Dr Woody. He shifted his legs off the tick and stood up as Hat Thistlewaite unlocked the door and the doctor stepped into the cell, stooped as ever, followed by Sergeant Reuben Peskett and Private Redenbach.

  An audience gathered, the Parsonage twins in the adjacent cell attentive to every word. ‘Best show in town,’ whispered Nimrod.

  ‘I doubt I can watch,’ said Crispin as he waddled to the bars, somewhat bow-legged.

  The blanket fell from Sparrow’s shoulders and he felt the cold air. Redenbach was carrying a pot of grease. Peskett had a corn sack in hand. He dropped the sack on the floor beside the grease and it went clunk and Sparrow reckoned it had to be the rectal pear. The lump in the sack had the look of a small bird, about the size of a wren, as best he could make out. But the clunk suggested something other than a wren.

  He did not want to look the poor old doctor in the eye. In that regard the evening gloom was helpful. He felt so sad he reckoned he must, somehow, have taken on the doctor’s sorrow and stowed it in his own heart, tucked away in one of those little ventricles.

  The taptoo sounded. He could hear the clanking of skillets, the faint thud of boots on stairs, and the government pigs whipped along, bound for the butcher’s pen. The sounds did not help Sparrow’s composure.

  ‘We’ll sling you like pork on a hog hook if we have to,’ said Peskett. He pointed to the block and tackle in the rafters.

  The doctor raised up a hand to quiet the sergeant. ‘Sit down, Martin,’ he said.

  Sparrow did as he was told. He smoothed the blanket and sat on it. He glanced upward, the block and tackle fixed to the beam in the corridor. He could hardly bear to contemplate the tackle and the pear in action, together. Snatches of Hat’s words came back to him: the narrow end, the sharp point, all greased up for rectal entry, the wing nut at the fat end, the petals . . . like a flower, something to that effect.

  This time Hat Thistlewaite brought the doctor a chair and the doctor shunted the chair close and then sat down. ‘I am going to ask you a question, Martin, and I want you to think carefully before you answer me, for if you tell me a lie I will know and I will not persist. I will leave you to the tender mercies of the sergeant, you understand?’

  ‘I won’t tell you a lie, I swear.’ That was bound, sooner or later, to be a lie, but Sparrow had to say it.

  ‘You tell me then: what have you done with my boy?’

  At that moment, the worst possible thing came to Sparrow’s mind, most pictorially. He saw the pup on the riverbank, gnawing at the entrails. I, me, Marty Sparrow, I did that, I let that happen. That was his foremost thought and he could not banish it.

  He felt his eyes tear up and he thought of Joe, who could no longer speak save a half-strangled word or two, and who cried because he was so addled and helpless, and he recalled the enchanting aspects of Bea Faa and the pleasant sensation when Amicus licked his hand and all of that, being there, on Joe’s patch, all of that seemed impossible now.

  He tried not to blink for he knew that a blink would send the welled tears running down his cheeks. Peskett and Redenbach would despise him all the more if they saw tears, and they would relish a free hand to do with him as they pleased. They were like hunting dogs on the leash, straining to be free. He blinked and wiped away a tear as it ran onto his cheek, quick as he could. He guessed the doctor had already heard Mackie’s account of the bull shark story so he determined to tell the story much as he’d said it to Mr Catley and much as he’d repeated it when they were in the shelter on the Branch.

  The hardest thing was to begin. He did not know how to begin so he just did. He poured out the bull shark story, every detail except to say whose dog it was, and the old doctor watched him all the while. Sparrow was hopeful that the dog would be of no consequence to the doctor. He hoped the doctor might be so focused on his boy such that all details about the dog, save the dog was party to the tragedy, would be overlooked.

  There was a long silence, broken only by Redenbach who felt obliged to say, ‘Bull shark my arse!’

  The doctor sat hunched over, staring at the cell floor. He made no sound but the sound of grit under his agitated soles.

  ‘More likely you killed him and buried him somewhere,’ said Peskett.

  ‘I want my boy back,’ said Woody. ‘I want proof of life or proof of death, one or the other and I will have it no other way and my missus will have it no other way, do you understand me, Mr Sparrow?’

  ‘He is not alive. The bull shark took him and I’m sorry beyond measure I truly am.’

  ‘How do we know that?’

  ‘Too neat for my liking,’ said Peskett.

  ‘Give him the pear!’ said Crispin Parsonage.

  ‘Where did it happen?’

  ‘Not far downstream o’ the Cattai.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You told Jason you wanted to fish?’

  ‘Jason?’

  ‘You don’t even know his name?’

  ‘I called him Jug.’

  Woody’s stare was so hard that Sparrow thought he might have shot his bolt there and then.

  ‘You don’t even know his name,’ he said again.

  ‘Yes sir I do, it’s Jason, I know that, I do.’

  ‘You ridicule my boy?’

  ‘We were going to fish, we changed our mind.’

  ‘You and Peachey decided to bolt, that’s what you did.’

  Sparrow had the powerful sense that he might just survive a small lie here or there but a big lie here would sink him sure. ‘That is true,’ he said. ‘Me and Peachey was bound for the other side.’

  ‘There ain’t no bull sharks that far upriver,’ said Redenbach.

  ‘Oh yes there is, and I’m haunted forever. The rest o’ my days.’r />
  ‘There ain’t too many o’ them days left ’cause you’ll hang for this.’

  ‘You in league with Mort Craggs?’ said Peskett.

  ‘Noooo.’

  ‘Griffin Pinney then?’

  Sparrow thought carefully. ‘I just did what he said.’

  ‘A dog you say?’ said the doctor.

  Sparrow paused. He wondered if, perchance, Mackie had revealed the truth about the dog. ‘Yes sir, a stray dog, that is, he found me is what I mean, and I took him with me.’

  ‘Why would you take a stray dog?’

  ‘For to trade . . . Mr Pinney said the savages require a toll, else you don’t get across. They’ll trade for dogs and hatchets, that’s what he said.’

  ‘Did you know they like handkerchiefs?’ said Redenbach.

  ‘So you tricked my boy?’ said the doctor.

  ‘We wanted to cross the river, that’s all.’

  ‘And then you took his boat and then you scuttled it, yes?’

  ‘That alone is a capital offence,’ said Redenbach.

  ‘Add to that facilitating a felon to bolt,’ said Peskett.

  ‘I never scuttled that boat, God’s truth. That was Peachey and I tried to stop him. I told him, we moor it and someone will pick it up, Guthrie on the scow, or someone, that’s what I said but he wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘And now it appears Mr Peachey is dead, which is entirely convenient. Like this bull shark,’ said Woody. He was still staring at the ground, shaking his head. He sat bent over, his forearms resting on his thighs, his hands clasped together, his knuckles ivory white.

  Sergeant Peskett took the opportunity to intervene. ‘Let’s see now, we got a bull shark eats a boy and a pig eats Seamus Peachey – there’s a lot of doubtful eatin’ going on, wouldn’t you say Mr Sparrow?’

  ‘You know it’s true for Seamus, for Mr Mackie saw it with his own eyes,’ said Sparrow.

  ‘I think he’s tuggin’ the collective squirrel,’ said Redenbach.

  ‘It’s the wild, the woods, things happen, they just happen.’

  ‘The cruel serendipity of the wilderness, that it?’ said Woody.

  Redenbach chortled. ‘You see this boar?’