The Burning Land

by John Fletcher

  It was only the thought of the troopers that stopped her from turning around right now and heading back again. As for Stubbs, she had never met a man yet who was worth a damn and he was no exception. He rode beside her all day, burly, black-bearded and silent. He never opened his mouth except to talk about gold. Gold, she thought derisively. Fat chance. He had found damn all on the goldfields. Why should he fall over it out here?

  She glared at the passing countryside as though at an enemy. The plain seemed endless. There were few trees and apart from a range of low hills along one horizon it had no features at all. She had thought she might get hold of some rich squatter, pass herself off as a widowed schoolteacher, perhaps, but knew now she would never be able to face it. She would be dead of boredom within a month. A girl could have too much goddamned clean living, that was sure.

  Soon as we get to some town I’ll make a break, she thought. Set up my own operation, maybe. Anything rather than this.

  Charlton rode into Jerry’s Plains for supplies. Inside the store the conversation was all about a gold robbery that had taken place down south. The papers that had arrived that day from Sydney were full of it.

  ‘Schultz?’ said Charlton to the man next to him at the counter. ‘That supposed to mean anything to us?’

  ‘He’s a bushranger,’ the man told him. ‘Most blood-thirsty killer in the colonies, is what they’re saying.’

  ‘I reckon he must be with five dead.’ Charlton scanned the headlines a second time. ‘Got an army with him, has he?’

  ‘Only himself and two others.’

  ‘They must be a wild set of ruffians if they killed five. Not that it’s likely to affect us up here, I suppose.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that. Last report was that he and his boys were heading up this way.’

  When he got back to camp Charlton warned the boys to keep their eyes open. ‘It ain’t likely we’ll run into them but it never hurts to keep a look out.’

  ‘Bushrangers?’ Charlie Owen said. ‘I never signed on to fight no bushrangers.’

  Charlton shook his head. ‘There’s times when I wonder what you did sign on for.’

  ‘Not to be killed, I’ll tell you that.’

  ‘For two pounds a week?’ Charlton laughed. ‘For a payout like that you got to take your chances, mate. You get killed, that’s just part of the deal.’

  Matthew said, ‘I knew a man called Schultz. He was a killer, too.’

  ‘Maybe he’s the same man,’ Charlton said.

  ‘Maybe he is.’ Matthew remembered the dark-haired man he had seen in the vicinity of their tent, the day Janice was murdered. ‘I’d like to have a word with him, I know that much.’

  ‘The only way you’ll ever talk to a man like that will be with a gun in your hand.’

  ‘Maybe I will, at that.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  It had been Agatha Burroughs’ idea that she and her brother should head northwestwards into the interior. Left to himself Caleb would never have left Sydney, would never have stirred off his backside, come to that, but Aggie Burroughs was not that way and could not have been if you’d paid her.

  Aggie was eighteen years old, a year older than Caleb. She had warm brown hair and eyes, her cheeks were pink and her skin tanned from working in the sun. She was tall for a woman and had a level way of looking at the world and its problems as though eager to get on and sort them out. Sorting out problems was her speciality and the problem she was trying to solve when they left Sydney was what to do about herself and Caleb and their future. She had long given up any hope of Caleb lifting a hand to help himself, let alone her, but that was all right: it was in her nature to take charge.

  Sydney was bad news: plenty of company of the wrong sort, plenty of prospects, all of them bad, no way she could see her way clear to lead her life the way she wanted to lead it. She met a man who told her about Fort Bourke.

  ‘Brand-new place,’ he said. ‘Right on the edge of the settled areas. Nothing beyond it but a million square miles of empty land. A man or woman can make what they like out of their life up there.’

  He had warned her there would be hardships, living so far from the centres of civilisation, but Aggie was used to hardship.

  ‘Run a little store,’ Aggie told Caleb, ‘that’s what we’ll do. That land ain’t going to stay empty for long and when the settlers come we’ll be there to meet them. Why,’ she said, brown eyes shining, ‘we’ll make a fortune before we’re through.’

  A fortune for its own sake didn’t interest her but earning it might give her just the challenge she wanted from life. It was what interested Caleb, though: make a fortune quick as they could, preferably with Aggie doing the work, head back to the bright lights, live it up in style. He could definitely relate to that.

  They left Sydney early one bright June morning and rode northwest; themselves, a couple of horses and such money as they had in the world. They crossed the Hawkesbury, rode through the hills to the north, crossed the Liverpool Range and came out on the Namoi River to the west of Tamworth. It was dry country and Caleb was about as useless as he always was but Aggie refused to be downhearted. Up the Namoi to the Barwon, she told herself, follow that to the Darling, in no time at all they’d be at their destination.

  ‘We are riding into our future,’ she told her brother.

  The way it turned out, they were riding into trouble.

  It was empty country, now, or nearly so, vast distances between settlements. Even individual farms were far apart and they often rode for several days without seeing a living soul. It was during one of these empty stretches that trouble struck.

  They had camped for the night by the river and Aggie had sent Caleb to collect some branches to make a fire. He turned over a pile of twigs and fallen bark and the snake struck him before he even knew it was there.

  His yell brought Aggie running as it had all his life but this time there was little she could do. She tried—there wasn’t a problem on God’s earth that Aggie Burroughs wasn’t game to have a go at—but although she slashed Caleb’s leg above the twin puncture marks, although she tried to suck out the poison with the blood, although she bound the leg as tight as she dared to stop the venom from spreading, by nightfall Caleb was delirious and it was obvious that the poison was moving fast through his system.

  ‘Maybe by the morning he’ll be on the mend,’ Aggie said but by morning he was worse.

  All they could do was ride on and hope to find help, although what help anyone could give them now was not clear. They rode for half a day, Caleb weakening steadily until he could barely cling to his saddle; then shortly after noon they came though a gap in the scrub and Aggie saw ahead of them the cabins and cleared paddocks of a small farm.

  They were only just in time: Caleb had reached the end of his strength and Aggie saw the farm woman’s face lengthen as he half-climbed, half-fell out of the saddle at her feet.

  Daisy Connor, fat, breathless, midforties, looked at Caleb, then at Aggie.

  ‘Let’s get him indoors,’ was all she said but her expression said everything her mouth did not.

  There were things in life and death that even Aggie could not beat and early the next morning, as the first hint of light appeared along the eastern horizon, Caleb Burroughs died without uttering a word.

  Aggie was saddened by his loss yet could not help feeling relieved that she was at last free from him and his complainings, his unfailing, petulant weakness.

  ‘I ain’t hurrying you along,’ Daisy said. ‘God knows you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, but if you got any plans I suppose I need to know ’em.’

  It was a fair question: Daisy had problems of her own. Daisy’s husband Rufe was sick too. He’d gashed himself with an axe two weeks earlier and the wound had festered.

  ‘Any good on a farm?’ Daisy asked her.

  ‘I never worked on one. My father was a fisherman before we moved to Sydney but I’m usually a fair hand at anything I set my mi
nd to.’

  ‘If you are,’ Daisy said, dragging her bulk across to the chair by the window, ‘you’ll surely be welcome to stay here as long as you like. Rufe’s as sick as a dog and these blessed pipes of mine get no easier, that’s for sure.’

  Rufe’s leg smelt bad, certainly, but it was not that as much as the rough edge of his tongue that wore Daisy out. He had always been a mean-tempered man and the accident had made him a hundred times worse. One more thing to put up with, she thought without letting the idea upset her too much.

  ‘There are things that need to be done if we’re going to get seed in the ground,’ Daisy said. ‘Ploughing and such. I’d be more than grateful if you could lend me a hand to do them.’

  They had buried Caleb in the little plot at the back of the farmhouse. There were three other small graves there too. Three children born in fear, loneliness and pain. None had lived longer than a week.

  ‘There’s times I curse the day we ever came north to this cruel place,’ Daisy said grimly.

  ‘How long you been here?’

  ‘Twelve years.’ Daisy sighed. ‘Twelve years of hope, disappointment, slavery. The land chews you up, all your hopes and youth and life, and spits you out again in little pieces. All you have left at the end is bitterness. And one other thing: a determination never to admit defeat.’

  Aggie took one of the draught horses and went to destump the nearer paddock. She thought that after twelve years the Connors might have got around to dealing with that sort of chore before this, but said nothing. If there was work to be done it gave her an excuse to stay on and for the moment she was happy to do that.

  With the Liverpool Range behind them Matthew said to Charlton, ‘Maybe now we can pick up a little time.’

  The air around them was full of dust and the bellowing of cattle as the mob threaded its way through the scrub.

  Charlton stared at him. ‘You in some kind of hurry? Got an appointment at the other end?’

  ‘I want to get there before the weather turns too hot.’

  Even now, in August, it was warm during the day although the nights were cold and the ground when they woke was often crisp with frost.

  ‘We’re makin’ good time,’ Charlton pointed out. ‘Nine, ten miles a day ain’t bad.’

  ‘I wouldn’t complain if we did better.’ Matthew looked at the empty countryside ahead of them. ‘Doesn’t seem much worth hanging around for in these parts.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Charlton told him. ‘There’s a few farms further on.’

  ‘I didn’t think this country had been proclaimed yet.’

  ‘Will be, though. They’re like us: they want to get in first.’

  Two hours later they came in sight of the farm. One advantage of this sort of country was that things couldn’t creep up on you: you saw everything ten miles away. From a distance it didn’t look much: a cabin or two with a cleared area around them and a couple of fenced paddocks. Set down alone in the middle of the vast and empty landscape, it looked even smaller than it was.

  The sun was well down in the sky by the time Matthew and Charlton reached the perimeter of the cleared land. A couple of tame blacks watched them from the corner of a hut.

  ‘Someone’s been busy,’ Matthew said, looking at a pile of stumps that by the look of them had been dug out of the ground only recently, ‘but I don’t see anyone about.’

  At that moment, as though to prove him wrong, a large woman appeared at the open door of the larger of the two buildings and waddled ponderously towards them. She was as broad as she was tall, a fat woman with a red, weathered face. She had obvious difficulty breathing; her weight must have affected her lungs.

  ‘I’m Daisy Connor,’ she said, breath whistling painfully in her throat. She smiled at the pair of them. ‘It’s good to see you. We don’t get many visitors.’

  ‘We’re on our way up-country,’ Matthew said. ‘We’ve got a mob of cattle back along the trail.’

  ‘I seen your dust for an hour or two already,’ Daisy told them. ‘Come on into the house. Rufe ain’t well but he’ll be eager to meet you, I’m sure.’

  The cabin was small and smelt of sickness. If Rufe was eager to see strangers he hid it well. His close-set blue eyes watched them suspiciously. ‘I can smell cattle. You blokes got livestock with you?’

  ‘We got a herd of cattle back along the trail,’ Matthew told him.

  ‘Make sure you keep ’em well away from here. We got enough trouble without havin’ everything eaten up by a bunch of mangy cows.’

  ‘We don’t have to stop at all if you’d prefer,’ Matthew said.

  The blue eyes flashed spitefully. ‘Don’ go puttin’ words in my mouth, mister. All I said was I don’t want your cows eatin’ up my pasture. That too much to ask?’

  ‘No need to talk like that,’ Daisy chided him from the open doorway, ‘I’m sure they’ll be careful.’

  ‘Keep an eye on ’em, that’s all I’m sayin’. Never had no reason to trust cattle men and I ain’t about to start now.’

  ‘You mustn’t take no heed of Rufe,’ Daisy told them when they were outside again. ‘He ain’t been himself since his accident. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.’ She laughed breathlessly. ‘We’re that lonely here I’d never forgive you if you didn’t give us the chance to find out what’s going on in the world.’

  ‘I doubt we know any more than you,’ Matthew said.

  Daisy shook her head. ‘You know how long it’s been since we saw a strange face around here? Sydney could have burnt down and we wouldn’t know.’

  ‘What’s the matter with your husband’s leg?’ Charlton asked.

  ‘Took an axe to hack a root and hacked his leg instead.’

  ‘Perhaps I could look at it,’ Charlton said. ‘I’ve seen a few wounds in my time and I’ll tell you straight, that leg don’t smell right.’

  ‘I got to live with the stink of it every day,’ she said tartly, ‘you don’ have to tell me it don’ smell right. You can ask him,’ she told him, ‘but I don’t give much for your chances. You saw what he’s like.’

  ‘We’d best go and attend to our cattle,’ Matthew said. ‘You needn’t worry, we won’t let them on to your paddocks.’

  ‘There’ll be a meal waiting when you’re ready.’

  It was two hours later and fully dark when Matthew returned. He came alone; Charlton had elected to stay with the herd.

  ‘You know me,’ he had said. ‘I ain’t one for polite society. I sit in that little room I’m scared I’ll break something.’

  Lamplight shone yellow through the window of the cabin as Matthew approached. Daisy opened the door before he could knock.

  ‘Where’s your friend?’

  ‘He thought he’d best stay with the herd.’

  Matthew bent his head to pass beneath the low lintel. He blinked in the sudden light, but not only because of the light. There was another woman in the room, as unlike Daisy in appearance as it was possible to be.

  ‘This is Aggie,’ Daisy told him. She turned to smile at the girl. ‘And this is—’

  ‘Matthew Curtis,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll dish up the supper,’ Daisy said, breath whistling.

  Aggie turned. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

  Daisy shook her head. ‘You stay where you are and entertain our guest.’

  Matthew was so busy studying Aggie he barely noticed Daisy leave the room. The sight of her warmed Matthew like a fire. She was tall for a woman and had a straightforward look that he liked. He liked everything he could see about her.

  ‘You’ll know me the next time you see me,’ she said, amused. Her voice was strong and deep.

  He smiled. ‘Reckon I will.’

  ‘You’d be hard to miss, too.’ She looked up at him. ‘A man your size is a tight squeeze in this little room.’

  ‘I’ve got out of the habit of rooms,’ he admitted. He had got out of the habit of more things than rooms: he stared at her stupidly, unable
to think of anything to say.

  She helped him. ‘Where are you headed?’

  ‘To Fort Bourke and up the Warrego.’

  ‘My brother and I were going to Fort Bourke to open a store,’ Aggie told him, ‘only he died. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘You planning to stay on?’

  She shook her head. ‘Maybe I’ll go back to Sydney. I haven’t made up my mind.’

  Daisy came back with a blackened pot clasped in her gloved hands. Matthew sniffed appreciatively.

  ‘Come and eat,’ she said.

  ‘What about your husband?’ Matthew asked.

  ‘He’s already eaten,’ Maggie said. ‘He don’t feel well enough to come to the table.’

  ‘You should get Charlton to look at that leg,’ Matthew told her.

  ‘I spoke to Rufe about that but he won’t hear a word of it.’

  ‘It’s none of my business,’ Matthew said, ‘but if that leg goes bad he could die.’

  ‘What will be will be,’ Daisy said. She slapped stew on to the plates and sat down. ‘Eat,’ she directed them.

  When dinner was over Matthew thanked both women, walked back to the herd and went to look for Charlton.

  ‘You missed a good time,’ he said and told him his plan.

  Charlton stared. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Alone I can’t. But the two of us could.’

  Charlton shook his head emphatically. ‘Ain’t none of our business.’

  ‘Answer me this,’ Matthew said, ‘will it help them or not?’

  ‘If it works of course it’ll help them. But—’

  ‘Then there’s no more to be said, Charlton.’ Matthew grinned, happy as always with the prospect of action. ‘We’ll do it first thing in the morning.’

  Next day Charlton was still unhappy. ‘We could be sticking our heads into a heap of trouble,’ he said. ‘I wish you’d think some more about it.’

  ‘The only trouble I can see is if we do nothing,’ Matthew told him. ‘Let’s go and get it over with.’

  They walked across to the cabin. A few chooks were pecking around the door and Daisy flapped her skirt at them as she came out to greet the two men.