The Burning Land

by John Fletcher

  Not three yards from her, a shadow moved.

  Somehow she swallowed the scream. Caught in the second when her legs had just begun to straighten, she froze. Within seconds, the protests of her thigh muscles had deepened to agony.

  The shadow remained motionless for a minute, perhaps more. Eyes now used to the darkness, Lorna saw the man standing, hand on the trunk of a tree, head turned a little to one side as he probed the forest with eyes and ears. She caught the glint of his eyes. He was so close she could hear his breath. She could even smell his feral stench against the vegetable aroma of the bush.

  He did not move. Neither did she. Legs cramping, breath imprisoned in her throat, she waited him out.

  At length he moved a few yards and waited again, gliding like a shadow between the trees. Close as she was, she could not hear him and knew that he was a master of bushcraft.

  She thought, if he sees me he will catch me before I’ve gone ten yards.

  She was frightened to move at all. Her leg muscles and skinned thighs were agony, so were the fingers Charlie had crushed before they started. Her clothes were torn and filthy. Her face smarted from the lash of the undergrowth. She had smelt her pursuer’s body; now she realised she could smell her own, reeking with sweat and terror beneath the filthy clothes.

  The slightest movement could betray her but she had to try.

  Any time yer wants me to learn yer manners, say the word.

  She forced one leg. Paused. The other. Paused. She placed her foot carefully, carefully, seeking a place clear of debris before putting her weight upon it. Failing. The faintest crackle, like a biscuit breaking.

  Froze.

  Nothing.

  One step, another, another. She was moving more freely now, breath gasping, thinking if he sees me against the firelight I am done, but moving, not hesitating, finding her way miraculously between obstructions into which she had blundered on her way into the forest.

  The firelight grew stronger. She caught a glimpse of the horses standing silently at the edge of the clearing. The light gleamed red on their coats. I shall have to ride bareback. Fortunately the horses still had their bridles.

  She would not allow herself to wonder whether she, who had hardly ridden in her life, would be able to ride any animal bareback never mind at an all-out gallop through the forest, in the dark, with no idea where she was headed.

  She would not think of it.

  She reached the horses. Caution dissolved in haste. Fingers fumbling, she tried to unfasten the rope securing Scabbard to the tree.

  At least they hadn’t hobbled the horses.

  A harsh voice spoke a few inches from her ear. ‘Yer won’ be needin’ that.’

  EIGHT

  The first hour was bad. George was tense and found it hard to keep up with the easy stride of the black men. He soon had a stitch and had to stop. A few minutes’ rest and they were off again. This time it was easier and after another hour he had his second wind. They ran at a steady jog that ate the miles.

  For a long time the countryside did not change. On their right the river flowed between heavily wooded banks; to the left, the plain extended its thirsty miles. George was gasping for lack of water, his legs increasingly heavy, but the black men never stopped or spoke but ran lightly and without apparent effort to the east, their long spears bobbing in their hands.

  The ground folded and became a line of hills, crests yellow against the sky. The men swung towards the hills, leaving the river behind them. The change of direction made George uneasy. So long as they followed the river he knew he could find his way back to Mary and the boy. Out here it would be easy to get lost and a lost man without water would die very quickly.

  He wondered what would happen if he refused to go further. Maybe they would wait but they might abandon or even kill him. Perhaps he had better keep going a little longer.

  Ten minutes later they came through a defile between the hills and he saw below him and not more than a mile distant the meandering course of a creek, the surface of the water shining black between green banks, and a cluster of wooden houses off to one side.

  For a long time, it seemed to her, Lorna fought frenziedly with all the strength induced by horror, terror and disbelief, lashing out with knees and feet, screaming, throwing her body about as she tried to stop Charlie from pinning her down. Neck and back arched, mouth wide, she would have bitten him if she could. Her knees and feet could not reach him. Her screams achieved nothing. Her violent contortions died as little by little he suppressed them. He could have beaten her but did not. She realised that he was enjoying it, watching with amusement her desperate and unavailing struggles to resist him. His legs and thighs, heavy as tree trunks, crushed her. His elbows pinned her arms. He grinned, foul-breathed, into her face as she strained her neck upwards unavailingly, seeking to lacerate, tear. She felt his hand, groping, ripping at her clothes.

  ‘I allus said yer was a spunky little bitch.’

  To the last she fought, knowing it was hopeless.

  Afterwards she lay, eyes blind, limbs slack, strength gone. She sensed him shift from her but did not move. She supposed the others would come now. It meant nothing. The sense of horror and disbelief, the frenzy of resistance, all was finished. She lay in the stinking shack, sweat drying on her belly.

  George limped down the straight and dusty trail that led to the station. He was alone. The warriors had pointed the place out to him then turned and loped away, running so easily they might have been out for an evening stroll.

  From the top of the hill the buildings had looked to be only a mile away, possibly less, but now the track seemed to go on forever. He was limping badly, muscles sending sharp messages of pain with every step. He looked down the trail and saw a horseman riding towards him in a cloud of dust.

  Horse and rider drew up at his side. A fine black mare, George saw, and wondered if he would ever see Domino again.

  ‘Name’s Dan Grant,’ the man said. ‘You in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘Reckon you could say I am,’ George admitted.

  ‘Had to be. A man out here without a horse. Walked far?’

  ‘Tweren’t the walkin’ so much. Twas the runnin’ near killed me.’

  ‘Running?’ Grant’s dark eyebrows rose under the brim of his hat. ‘That what you do for fun, is it? Run around the countryside with the temperature in the middle nineties?’

  George explained about the natives. ‘When I first saw ’em, I thought they was goin’ to kill me,’ he confessed.

  ‘I’d say you were lucky they didn’t,’ Grant said. ‘I had a shepherd speared a year ago, not five miles from here.’

  ‘Maybe twasn’t the same band.’

  ‘Or maybe it wasn’t their day for killing people. You want to come along to the station and tell me what this is all about or would you sooner stand here and speculate why the blacks didn’t take the trouble to kill you?’

  The man, who would have been about forty or forty-five, with a red face and long black moustaches, certainly had a sharp way of speaking.

  George said, ‘I reckon I’d sooner head down to your station and get my boots off a spell.’

  ‘Can you walk that far or d’you want a lift?’

  It was an awkward question. George had been walking or running for what seemed half a lifetime. He would have much preferred a lift but didn’t want this man to think he was incapable of walking the distance that remained between him and the station buildings.

  ‘Reckon I can walk,’ he said.

  Grant looked at him. ‘I reckon you can, too, if you’ve made it as far as this. But I think Mavis here can manage the two of us for that short distance. Hop up. If you kin manage it.’

  George did manage it but with little to spare. He clung on as best he could while Grant put Mavis into a canter. In no time they were at the station.

  The homestead was built of wood but in other ways reminded George of Inverlochrie—well made and substantial. A veranda ran the length o
f the building, with a table and a couple of chairs on it.

  ‘Sit down there,’ Grant said. ‘Take your boots off if you want.’

  He fetched a bottle and glasses, lifted down a canvas water bag from a hook at the end of the veranda and came back. He poured himself a stiff drink—more whisky than water, George noticed—and pushed the makings across the table.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he said and waited, boot heels on the edge of the table, hat tipped low over his eyes, while George poured himself a more modest drink.

  George took a sip. He knew Dan Grant was waiting for him to tell him what he was doing here but it was in George’s nature to creep up on facts rather than blurt them straight out.

  He nodded at the black mare tied to the veranda railing. ‘Nice horse.’

  ‘Mavis? Not bad.’

  ‘Unusual name.’

  ‘Named her for my sister. She reminded me of a horse, all the years I lived with her. Now my horse reminds me of her.’ He tipped half his drink down his throat. ‘I may be wrong, but I don’t reckon you walked two days to talk about my horse,’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’

  Unable to avoid the point any longer, George explained.

  Grant moved only to replenish his glass.

  ‘Where you camped? Two days west of here?’

  ‘Plus half a day’s run,’ George corrected him. ‘On the banks of the Murray.’

  ‘You got two problems, as I see it,’ Grant said. ‘First, how to keep your drive going with no horses and no guns and with the man who was running it injured or possibly dead. Second, how to get this woman back. If we can get her back.’ His eyes gleamed at George from beneath his hat. ‘That it?’

  George thought carefully around what the squatter had said. It was a complicated situation and he wanted to make no mistakes. ‘That’s about it,’ he said finally.

  ‘On the other hand maybe not,’ Grant told him. ‘We can’t do anything about the man who’s sick. He’ll either recover or he won’t. If we get the woman back we also recover your guns and horses. So that’s what we should concentrate on. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ George said cautiously.

  ‘You say their leader was called Charlie?’

  ‘That’s what they called him.’

  ‘That’ll be the Smith gang, then. Charlie Smith’s bad trouble and always will be and the two young fellers with him are no better. I knew they were down the Murray some place but I thought they were further west. Last I heard they’d crossed the river and gone south. They’ll be raiding the new settlers down that way, I suppose. They’ll be the ones took your lady.’

  George thought about things for a while. ‘Any way we can get her back?’ he wondered eventually.

  ‘Reckon there is,’ Grant said. He tipped the last of his drink down his throat and stood up. ‘Let me get a few of the boys.’

  ‘You going now?’ The sun was already sliding down its westwards slope. It would be dark in three hours, at latest.

  ‘Damn right I’m going now. Leave it any longer, there may not be anything of that girl to pick up but a few pieces.’

  In a matter of minutes Grant had organised a party of half a dozen white men and one black and the group was riding across the plain in the direction of the river. George never did get around to taking off his boots.

  George had assumed they would camp when it got dark but Dan Grant kept riding. ‘No time to waste,’ he said. ‘Those men got to be stopped before they slip away.’

  They had to slow down after nightfall but still made good time, following the bank while the Murray River gleamed silver under the stars.

  They reached the camp three hours after sunset.

  NINE

  You are alone. Violated and abandoned. Without hope. You tried to stop them. Failed. Tried to escape. Failed. Tried to fight. Failed. You never wanted to come to this savage land but came anyway, not out of a sense of love or fear or duty but because you were conditioned to do what you were told. Conditioned to obey. That was what brought you from one side of the world to the other, brought you into the silence and menace of the bush—because your husband had a dream which you neither shared nor wanted but which you accepted because it was your duty. Part of the contract, implied but fundamental, was that you could trust him to protect you. He had not. He had failed you. And here you are. Violated and alone.

  The hut door stood open to catch the breeze, only there was no breeze. The forest was dark and breathless, shrill with the crazy monotony of insects.

  Outside the hut, the three men sat on the litter-strewn ground about the fire, drink-smeared laughter batting the evening air as they swilled the third of the six stolen bottles of grog. Inside, Lorna lay curled on the scrap of sacking that Charlie had thrown on the dirt floor as a bed. She had not sucked her thumb since she was a child. She did so now, knees raised protectively to her chest.

  Charlie had taken over the hut for himself and Lorna as soon as they arrived at the camp. Taken her over too. The others were supposed to have shared her but had not. There had been hard looks about it, hard words too, but for the moment they had gone along with it. It was still Charlie’s mob.

  Lorna’s blonde hair, sweat-stained and dirty now, hung in streaks over her face. She could not be bothered to push it away. It was too hot for anything like that. Earlier she had found the energy to strip down to the nightgown she had been wearing beneath her clothes. It hadn’t helped much. She was still hot, her skin slimed with sweat. She had thought to strip off altogether but had not, afraid Charlie would not like it.

  Charlie’s likes mattered. As long as she pleased him, he would protect her from the others. From Pat in particular with his high cheekbones and mad, pale eyes. Charlie had hit her, but only once, at the beginning, to make her obedient. Pat was not interested in obedience. If he hurt her it would be because he enjoyed it.

  She had discovered there was no depth to which it was possible to fall that did not carry terrors of falling still further. She hoped, believed, prayed that Charlie, stinking, coarse and filthy, would protect her from the abyss. He had covered her three times since she had fought so hard to prevent him. That she accepted. She belonged to him. He had not beaten her or cut her or done any of the thousand things he could have done had he wished. She had not fought him since that first time.

  Neither of the others had visited her. If Charlie permitted it they would come. She did not care as long as she remained under his protection. He held the power of life and death over her. She would crawl in the dirt if he demanded it. She could do nothing. Was nothing.

  She stank. Of sweat, dirt, sex. She cared nothing for that, either.

  ‘I am nothing,’ she said to the hot and fetid air.

  ‘I’m comin’ wi’ ye,’ Andrew said.

  George had expected to find him dead or close to it yet here he was, the same Andrew as always, with nothing to show for the blow but an ugly-looking gash over one eye.

  ‘Someone’s going to have to stay here,’ Grant said. ‘We can’t leave Mrs Curtis by herself.’

  ‘She’s my wife,’ Andrew said, his intensity singing like a tightened wire.

  George watched the faces of the men about the fire. They were young, for the most part, but their faces were hard and experienced—bushmen’s faces. If anyone could track Charlie Smith and his gang, they would do it. They’d ridden hard. Now they had eaten and drunk, wasting no time, and were ready to go on.

  Grant wanted to get after the gang now, while it was still dark. He claimed his black tracker could follow them, even at night. The sooner they found them, the better Lorna’s chances would be.

  George reckoned he’d done his share; besides, the squatter was right. Mary should not be left alone. Lorna was Andrew’s wife and Mary was his. His place was here.

  ‘I’ll stay,’ he said.

  Grant nodded. ‘We’ll get on, then. I hope we bring her back for you.’

  The men mounted. The light shone on the coats of the hors
es, the men’s eyes, the oiled steel of the guns. Within minutes, the sound of the hooves died in the quiet darkness.

  Pat’s pale eyes glared in fury. ‘I picked ’er meself. She was for all of us. You said so.’

  ‘That was then.’

  ‘So you ’as ’er and Billy Boy and me goes without. That it?’

  ‘Somen like that.’

  ‘I ain’t puttin’ up with it.’

  Charlie’s big fingers hung close to his pistol. ‘Put up or ride out, I reckon.’

  ‘I told you already, I got a score to settle with ’er. I want ’er.’

  ‘Well, yer can’ ’ave ’er.’

  Pat’s pale eyes gleamed. ‘We’s ’eadin’ for a fall-out, you ’n’ me, Charlie.’

  ‘Yer tol’ me that, a’ready.’ Contemptuously. ‘An’ I said I’d bury yer, you try anythin’.’

  Pat showed teeth. ‘Maybe I’ll bury you first, Charlie. Ever think about that?’

  Light from the fire flickered in their eyes as they watched each other.

  ‘Easy, mates,’ Billy Boy said uncomfortably. ‘Don’ let’s fall out about it, eh?’

  ‘Let ’im ’and the girl over, then, like we said. I wants my turn at ’er and I’ll bet you does too.’ Pat’s eyes did not move from Charlie’s face.

  ‘Wot you think about it, Billy Boy?’ Charlie asked. His eyes, too, did not move. A flame sprang up as a log collapsed in the heart of the fire. ‘You another one sayin’ I should ’and her over?’

  ‘Mate, I dunno.’ Billy Boy wasn’t one for big confrontations. Reluctantly he added, ‘That’s what we said.’

  ‘God rot it, all right, then,’ Charlie said furiously. ‘Don’ reckon I can fight the pair o’ you.’

  Pat was suspicious of so easy a victory. ‘Best be sure you means it, Charlie.’

  ‘It’s only a woman, after all.’ Charlie smiled coldly, knowing it was about a lot more than only a woman.