The Making of Martin Sparrow

by Peter Cochrane

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s a hard road Marty, the perils countless. Why would I risk that, whether good knees or bad knees? Why should you? You got your dog, you got me for company, what more you want?’

  The question prompted Sparrow to think of Bea Faa but he would not mention Bea Faa to Mort Craggs, not ever. Mort had stolen Gordy’s girl, he’d used her, and now it transpired he’d given her up to the savages. He was infamously hard on women. At The Dirty Sack back in Blackley, he’d kept a cane rod pickled in brine and Sparrow could recall several occasions when Mort had thrashed Misty with the rod all about her legs and buttocks, and another time when Misty told him, in confidence, she was going to fix Mort in his sleep, fix him good and proper, but she never did.

  The only wise course was to keep the conversation well away from Bea. ‘Is it truly a river of the first magnitude?’ he said.

  Mort was sniffing at his bush tea with his eyes closed, the steam curling about his nostrils. ‘I’ve thought about that Marty.’

  ‘You have?’

  ‘Being of the first magnitude we can but assume this river possesses the usual sinuosities of all great rivers, thus its course cannot be less than two, three thousand miles, perhaps more, and the magnitude of such a flow at the confluence with the ocean so great the only possible host for such an outflow, as yet undiscovered, can be the north-west coast of which, as Mr Flinders himself concedes, we know so little. So, yes, that’s where it is, the outflow.’

  Mort beckoned Sparrow’s dog, clicking his fingers, and Amicus came to him and sat by his knee.

  He ran his hand along the dog’s lithe frame, the shaggy coat gritty to the touch. ‘They’re the best friend a man has in this world, you know that.’

  ‘Amicus?’

  ‘Consider this: the world may turn against a man, his family may prove ungrateful, our nearest and dearest may betray us and don’t I know it. Our reputation may be lost, we may fall foul of our creditors and our betters and find ourselves hounded, punished or outcast, and our friends drift away or spurn us even unto our faces. Yet there is one friend who will never desert us, never prove ungrateful, ever by our side.’

  ‘Our dog?’

  ‘Our dog, yes,’ said Mort. ‘When all is lost, when misfortune drives his master exiled into the world, friendless, homeless, he remains. He is steadfast; he is constant in his love, not like some woman. He is a perpetual balm to our miseries . . . We rise each day and each day he comes to us, as the sun in the east, as the light to our lives, loaded up with a warmth and a fealty that carries to our very heart, warms the very cockles, ad infinitim. I got a bit o’ Latin too.’

  Sparrow wished now that he hadn’t said that word our. There was no our about the situation. He was not going to share Amicus Amico with anybody, least of all Mort Craggs, for to share his dog with Mort would be to give him up entirely.

  Mort’s attachment to Amicus was troubling. Now he was scratching the dog behind the ears and talking to him like he was a little child. ‘You like it here, you want to stay with ol’ Mort you can stay with ol’ Mort.’

  ‘We have to go, tomorrow,’ said Sparrow. The words just tumbled out, caught his good sense napping.

  Mort straightened up. ‘You just got here,’ he said. He pulled the dog close to him, working his fingers in the fur.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I was thinking we might partner up, you and me.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You never shopped me, Marty, I don’t forget that.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You ever think about Misty?’

  ‘Dancing?’

  ‘No, dead in the dock.’

  ‘I have to go back, help my friend . . . Joe.’

  ‘Joe who?’

  ‘Joe Franks.’

  ‘Why’s he need help?’

  ‘He’s sick.’

  ‘I heard he was up to his ears in some dusky maiden’s muff. I heard he bought her. I heard he shares her with that po-faced straightener Mackie.’

  ‘Mackie helped Joe win the auction, that’s all. He helped Joe buy her, instead of Griffin.’

  ‘What’s he want, huh? I’ll tell you what he wants.’ Mort summoned up some gob and spat into the flames. ‘Anyway, Joe Franks is dead.’

  Sparrow was silent, his thoughts tumbling about, trying to settle on what best to say, mystified as to how such intelligence might come to Mort.

  ‘Cat got your tongue Marty?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think you goin’ back for the cunny, I think you goin’ back for that girl.’

  ‘Nooo.’

  ‘On that subject I can tell you something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That girl’s on the Branch. She’s comin’ up the river.’

  ‘She is?’

  ‘Hmmm. Caleb says she don’t look happy I’ll give her happy she goes sour on me.’

  ‘I hope you won’t do that.’ Sparrow’s mind was casting back to terrible moments in The Dirty Sack. The only wise course was to keep the conversation well away from Bea, but Mort would not be diverted from his instruction. ‘You beat them not to hurt them but to correct them, otherwise there’s no peace in the household, y’foller me?’ Mort scratched at his chest yet again, looked up to the sky. ‘Hard to believe rain’s comin’.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘I’m assured it is yes, storm in the west, comin’ this way.’

  Sparrow was not concerned about rain. He could not think why Bea was coming upriver unless she was looking for him, but he was not inclined to believe such good fortune would ever come his way. ‘Why she comin’?’

  ‘She ain’t comin’ alone. She’s got them ancient constables with her, Cuff and Sprodd.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What why who when – I ain’t the Delphic oracle why don’t you go ask him?’

  ‘I don’t know him.’

  ‘One thing more.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stop saying what and answer my question.’

  ‘What question?’

  ‘You lie to me again, Marty, I’ll crack your skull and tan a hide with your brains. Now: why you in such a hurry?’

  Sparrow knew he had to come up with something good, a good lie in place of a bad lie, lest he lose Mort’s trust altogether, for if he did that, if he lost Mort’s trust altogether he’d be in terrible trouble. ‘I have to fix something, something terrible I did,’ he said.

  ‘Fix? Fix what?’

  ‘I took, that is Peachey and me, we took Jug’s little boat, Dr Woody’s boy, and mid-stream he went in, the boy, he went in after Amicus and a bull shark took him and what was left of him we sunk, tied to a stone in the middle of the river. It was the most terrible thing and I have to tell the doctor what happened.’

  Mort began to laugh, more a chuckle at first but then he slapped his thigh and leaned back and laughed loud, smacking his hands together and stamping his feet. The dog shied away but Mort grabbed him and held him close. ‘That’s a hell of a story.’

  ‘It’s not a story – it’s true.’

  Mort settled. ‘You would surrender yourself and confess all to the doctor, is that it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You tryin’ to be honourable?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Honourable get you pilloried, or hung.’

  ‘It might.’

  ‘I don’t believe you’re that honourable, Marty, I just don’t believe it.’ Once again Mort made that terrible, sucking sound and summoned up some gob and spat into the fire. The motion reminded Sparrow of Griffin Pinney looping a great gob into the mud on South Creek and saying something about a rat.

  ‘I’m a better man than I was, I know that much.’

  ‘Be that as it may, you go you go alone, I keep the game dog. You stay we can share him, you and me. I concede I’m no substitute for the cunny but I’ll let you into a secret.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Gordy’s girl ain’t beyond reach if
we want her, you and me.’ Mort had an awful smirk on his face. He winked at Sparrow.

  Sparrow found that thought most distasteful. ‘Alright,’ he said. But that was a lie. It was not alright. It was not alright that Mort had designs on Amicus Amico. It was not alright that Mort would blackmail him into palling up. It was not alright that Gordy’s girl was a captive somewhere in the woods, caught in the most terrible kind of peonage, a drudge and a slave to the passions of savages, one savage in particular, Mort Craggs, him who now seemed intent upon running his greedy eyes over Bea Faa. And it was not alright that Mort would crack his skull and tan a hide with his brains if ever he caught him telling another lie, whether big or small, who would know.

  Sparrow cast a furtive glance at the small axe by the firestones. The small axe had a solid and serviceable look about it, a nicely finished helve, the head good and heavy, butt and blade.

  That night, beneath a leaden sky, not a single star, Sparrow killed Mort Craggs with the small axe. His tried and true method was slightly modified as Mort was sleeping soundly on his back. Sparrow waited hours for Mort to roll over but Mort did not roll over. He lay there like he was pinioned to the earth, like he was staked out, snoring like an old hog. Sparrow waited and waited, finally concluding that Mort was not going to roll over. It took Sparrow some time to reconcile with the modification required. He would have to stand astride Mort and brain the man, head on, face to face.

  He worried that Mort might open his eyes just in time to parry the blow. If that happened, Mort would surely tear him limb from limb or take to him with the axe the way he took to Gordy. The thought weakened Sparrow’s resolve. But then he thought of the morrow should he do nothing, the morrow when Mort would surely seize Amicus for his own and perhaps summon up his sable friends and go hunting for Bea Faa.

  The dog at that moment was curled up next to Sparrow, sound asleep. Everything Mort had said about dogs was true, the more fool him, trumpeting his opinion. Sparrow felt the resolve come back to his marrow. He put his hand upon Amicus as he raised himself up. He stroked the dog softly, short slow strokes in the neighbourhood of the kidneys. He picked up the axe and the sackcloth rag and straddled Mort, and paused but not for long because he was awfully fearful Mort might open his eyes.

  He put the blade square into Mort’s forehead and split his face in two. The skull parted from the crown to the bridge of the nose and cracked into the socket of the left eye.

  When the blade came away Sparrow nearly fell over, such was his giddiness in that moment. But he righted himself and held the pose, triumphant, sucking for air in fear he might faint. He felt Mort’s hand take hold of his ankle, but there was no strength in that hand and it slipped into the waiting dust, the palm upturned, the fingers twitching.

  Amicus was hurrying on the scent to the puddling blood on the downside of Mort’s skull. Sparrow threw a blanket over the man’s upper half, covering the skull entirely, and he shooed the dog away. ‘Get away, go’n sit down,’ he said, softly.

  Sparrow wondered why he was whispering. He looked about. He feared Caleb might appear at any moment. Caleb had a knack of turning up when least expected, as savages do. If that happened that would be most unfortunate, especially if Mort really was old Wolgan’s dead uncle, thus family to Caleb.

  He wanted to flee, to get clear of his horrible enormity. He knew he did not have the wherewithal nor the fortitude to head west on his own. He felt himself obliged to pursue the one option that seemed to be available: work his way downriver and hope to find Bea Faa, though how he might extract her from the clutches of the two constables was, at that moment, beyond his reckoning.

  Yet, he was able to reckon about some things. He sat himself down in the dirt, a comfortable distance from Mort’s corpse. The constables might be coming upriver in pursuit of Redenbach, as Bea Faa would surely have told them about Joe’s murder. So long as they stuck to the Branch they would find his body, and Peskett’s body too, and they would surely conclude that the carnage on the river sands was the work of the savages, revenge for the killings near the ceremonial ground. And then perhaps – a further reckoning on Sparrow’s part – then they would head back to Joe’s and after that, with any luck, Cuff and Sprodd would depart for the ridge, leaving Bea to farm with Freddie for the foreseeable future, keeping in mind we can always hope for the future but we never know if there is one.

  All of that Sparrow was able to reckon, remarkably, given his distressing situation. In his mind’s eye, most pictorially, he could see the constables scratching around the bodies of Peskett and Redenbach, trying to make sense of the slaughter, Bea Faa seated in the shade of a big old rusty gum, watching on, not a word. Peskett, gap-toothed, the blank eyes skyward. The ruined hand. The skull split open from behind. Might she guess?

  He imagined he might follow them, discreetly, back to Joe’s farm and there secret himself in some obscure vantage like a sooty owl on a bough, patience personified, there to await the departure of the constables, their duty done, whereupon he would make his presence known to Bea and they would sit down at Joe’s table and discuss their future over a meal of cooked meat, corn and peach cyder and whatever else might be at hand; perhaps some wheaten bread made from Mackie’s flour. He marvelled at just how little his innards had troubled him on the Branch. The Branch might be a tonic in itself. There were sounds coming back to him. Now he could hear the river, flushing out of the headwaters to the west.

  He was awfully tired.

  59

  Sparrow woke in the first light of the morning, the sky above the gully thick with shifting cloud, the roar of the river sounding in his ears. He sat up shivering and hitched the blanket around his shoulders and pulled it across his chest. He watched a magpie picking for grubs on the fringe of the camp. ‘You don’t care,’ he said.

  He poked up the fire, dressed the tiny flame with twigs and then moved to the far side of the campsite and he sat in the dirt with Amicus and stared at Mort’s carcass, beneath the bloodied blanket. He was not hungry but he thought himself ready and able to drink some of Mort’s brew. He topped up the dregs. He drained Mort’s water bladder into the quart pot, perched the pot on the edge of the coals, the flames licking up the side. Amicus leaned over the fire stones and sniffed at the pot and backed away and sat himself and watched Sparrow with a most deliberate attention.

  Sparrow rifled through Mort’s haversack. He found a powder pouch and a handful of shot, a wrap of ship’s biscuits and a pair of plain leather shoes with a flap and a buckle. They were threadbare and way too small for Mort and even too small for Sparrow.

  He slung the powder pouch on his shoulder, with the costrel, and the biscuits he secured in his haversack.

  A lone wood duck winged out of the west. He heard the call of a crow and somewhere nearby the song of a bellbird filled the air, like a dawn chime in the mansions of heaven.

  He took the small axe and cleaned the head in the dirt and then he fixed the weapon to his belt. He lifted the blanket on the corpse, one last look, a good long look. The wilderness required the hardness to stomach such bloody doings. He took Mort’s pistol from its holster and stuck the long muzzle in his belt but it felt most uncomfortable and he reckoned he might lose it, so he put the pistol in his haversack.

  In a drawstring pouch in Mort’s pocket he found tea leaves and a flint. He made some fresh tea and sat and drank. Then he emptied the teapot on the fire and he put the prize in the haversack. Sat there, Amicus close.

  He considered the item a most important acquisition for it reminded him of Mr Catley’s cave house, the old teapot on the window sill, all the comforts of a home signified therein. The teapot fired his hope, his dream of a cave house in a beautiful valley somewhere in the far beyond. If ever his hope flagged he would stop and make a cup of tea and think about the cave house he would have. The teapot would surely spur on the most perfect ambition he had ever known. With the dream you seize control and once again the world is yours for the taking. Mort said that, so Sp
arrow had to acknowledge that Mort was no fool. He was a bad man but he was no fool.

  Sparrow flattened the fire with his boot and doused the stubborn flames with cold ash. He shouldered the haversack. Amicus Amico was at his heel, happy as a pig in slop, and Sparrow spoke to the dog and heard his own voice as if for the first time. ‘Let’s go find Bea,’ he said.

  He scanned the scene, one more time, and spied the rope and the grappling hook a short way up the gully, useful, might save a great deal of clambering in a fix.

  Sparrow headed up the gully, fastened the rope and the hook to his haversack and once again shouldered his belongings. He was about to step away when he heard the sound, a faint whimper from the cave.

  For a moment he could not move. His first thought was run. But he did not run and he hardly knew why, save that faint sound seized upon his heart. He listened some more, saw Amicus, ears cocked, stalking into the forecourt of the cave.

  He slipped the haversack off his shoulder and set it down, softly. He moved closer and listened, heard the sound of a girl, whimpering. He knew now, in all likelihood, that Mort had told him another lie, for he had not dispensed with Gordy’s girl, Dot, nor had he passed her off to the savages.

  Sparrow wished he had not come up the gully, feeling himself to be, at that moment, awfully burdened. Where such a burden might lead he could not imagine. The worry put his guts in a churn, that churn not helped by the weather as a pall of grey cloud from the west filled the sky above.

  The gully was sufficiently shaded and the cave sufficiently cavernous to resist all daylight beyond the forecourt. Sparrow edged in. He felt the cool, damp air on his skin. Leaning forward, he stared into the dark. He took another step. He smelt the rank odour of stale piss. He saw movement. ‘It’s alright,’ he said.

  She was sat in the grit, clothed in naught but a cotton shift and her legs drawn tight to her frame like a trussed fowl. There was a tin mug close to her knees. She had a fist closed tight on a crumpled blanket. She dragged herself away from him and the blanket with her.