The Burning Land

by John Fletcher

  ‘Stupid things,’ she said. ‘Can’t abide them unless they’re on a plate.’

  ‘Is Rufe about?’ Matthew asked her.

  ‘If you mean is he awake the answer’s yes. But he won’t see you. Taken a dead set against the pair of you, I don’t know why.’

  ‘I don’t know why, either,’ Matthew told her. ‘We’ve done nothing to him. Anyway it’s no matter. What matters is his leg. Is it any better at all?’

  ‘Don’t smell like it,’ Daisy said. ‘And it seems to be paining him worse than it was.’

  ‘We’ll go and see him, in that case.’ He smiled down at the fat little woman. ‘With your permission.’

  They walked into the inner room. Sunlight was gleaming through the chinks in the walls but a blind was drawn over the only window and the room was dark. Rufe lay on a tumbled bed. He looked bad and smelt worse.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing walking in here like you own the place?’ he demanded, glaring up at them.

  ‘We come to do you a favour,’ Matthew told him. He threw back the dirty clothes and coughed as the stench of the bandaged leg hit him. ‘Not before time, either, by the smell of it.’

  Rufe backed away across the bed and took a feeble swing at Matthew as he came closer. Matthew evaded the blow without difficulty and took the sick man by the shoulders, pinning him effortlessly to the bed. Rufe started to yell as though they were throttling him.

  ‘Be quiet or I’ll give you a good smack.’ Matthew looked at Charlton over his shoulder. ‘Get on with it. He keeps on like this he’ll deafen me.’

  Still Charlton was reluctant. ‘What if it’s too late?’

  ‘Then at least we tried. Now, do it before I lose my patience with you too.’

  Charlton took his knife and cut the bandage away. The leg was an ugly sight. The gash was badly swollen and inflamed around the edges, the flesh mottled purple and yellow beneath a thick crust of dried blood. Dark streaks showed through the skin, probing up towards the thigh. The stench was appalling.

  ‘How is it?’ Matthew asked as he held the struggling man.

  ‘Bad.’

  ‘Cut it.’

  Rufe screamed. ‘Keep away from me, you damn butchers!’

  ‘By rights I should put the blade in the fire first—’

  ‘Cut it!’

  Charlton set his teeth, seized the leg and brought his knife down on the wound.

  ‘Reckon we took a pint of pus out of that leg before we were through,’ Matthew told Daisy later as they sat in the parlour and sipped the tea she had pressed upon them. Behind the bedroom door all was quiet. ‘Charlton here missed his vocation. He should have been a surgeon.’

  ‘All that shouting, it was all I could do not to come in,’ Daisy said. ‘Then he was quiet later so I thought things must be all right. Either that or you’d killed him.’

  ‘I was tempted, believe me,’ Matthew said. ‘He was quiet because he passed out but if we hadn’t done it he would have died.’

  ‘He may still die,’ Charlton said. ‘The poison’s gone up his leg.’

  ‘I’m very grateful to the pair of you,’ Daisy said. ‘It was a brave thing to do for a complete stranger.’

  Matthew shook his head, smiling wryly. ‘I’m not sure Rufe appreciated it.’ He stood, head almost touching the ceiling of the room. ‘Is Aggie about?’

  ‘That girl don’t like to sit around. She’ll be down the paddocks somewhere.’

  ‘I might take a stroll, in that case.’ He nodded to Daisy and walked out into the sunlight.

  Aggie was down by the creek. The water lay in green, half-stagnant pools between stretches of sun-dried mud. She had been ploughing a cleared strip of ground. She stopped and wiped the sweat from her face as Matthew walked across to her.

  ‘Finished your talk with Rufe?’

  ‘If you could call it talk,’ he told her. ‘Rufe was doing most of it.’

  ‘I heard him. What were you doing?’

  ‘Doctoring his leg.’

  ‘I’m surprised he agreed.’

  ‘Let’s say we managed to persuade him.’

  ‘Will he live?’

  ‘At least now he’s got a chance. He had none before.’

  Aggie moved and the sunlight ran in gold streaks through her brown hair. A light breeze fluttered her skirt against her legs. She said, ‘Rufe’s such a bad-tempered bloke I’m surprised you bothered.’

  Matthew shrugged. ‘It’s a pity to let a man rot if you can avoid it.’

  ‘Do you normally do what you want in other people’s houses?’ Her voice was soft and she was smiling.

  ‘It was the right thing to do,’ Matthew said. ‘I reckon I’d do it again if I had to.’

  The sweat had dried on her tanned face. The breeze lifted tendrils of her hair and blew them around her neck. She was tall and capable looking and beautiful. Matthew felt his breath tighten as their eyes met.

  Aggie smiled at him and pushed her hair back off her face with the back of a dirt-stained hand. ‘Why are you going up the Warrego?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s empty land up there. Millions of square miles of it. I thought I’d take a piece.’

  ‘Caleb and I were headed that way. As far as Fort Bourke anyway.’

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your brother,’ Matthew said. ‘He wanted to go up there, did he?’

  Aggie shook her head. ‘It was more my idea than his. He’d have been quite happy to stay in Sydney but there was this huge country out here and I thought it was a pity to waste it.’

  ‘Why Fort Bourke?’

  ‘Because I’d heard that was as far as anyone had gone.’ She smiled at him again. ‘And now I find you’re planning to go even further.’

  Surprising himself, Matthew suggested, ‘You could come with us.’

  She looked at him quizzically. ‘One woman alone with a bunch of cow-hands?’

  The suggestion had come from nowhere but now Matthew felt mounting tension, wanting her to agree. ‘You wouldn’t be alone. We’ve already got one woman with us.’

  Aggie raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Not what you’re thinking,’ he told her. ‘Nance is with one of our hands. She’s the cook. Pretty good at it too.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to do when you get wherever it is you’re going?’

  ‘That would be up to you. At least you’d have seen something of this huge country you’ve been talking about.’

  ‘There’s such a thing as seeing too much of it.’

  She was tempted, he could see. ‘If Rufe comes good they’ll be able to manage like they’ve done all these years,’ he said. ‘If he dies I doubt Daisy will be able to hang on by herself anyway.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate her,’ Aggie told him. ‘Daisy’s the one as keeps them going.’

  Matthew thought that if only he could find the right words he might indeed be able to talk her into coming with them. He looked at her warm hair and skin, her brown eyes, and was excited by the thought.

  ‘Would you come if Rufe wasn’t sick?’

  ‘There ain’t no point talking about it,’ she said. ‘He is sick and likely to stay that way.’

  ‘Maybe not, now we’ve opened up that leg.’

  Four days later it was clear that Rufe wasn’t going to die after all, although he was not about to thank anyone for the fact.

  ‘Bloody marvellous,’ he grumbled. ‘Blokes come and attack you in your own house.’

  Matthew had no patience with him. ‘Be thankful we did. You’d be in your box if we hadn’t.’

  It was time to move on. Already he had delayed longer than he should. He told himself he had done it to give Rufe time to get well but it wasn’t true. He had stayed because he was still hoping to talk Aggie into coming with them. Even for her, there was a limit to how long he could wait. If she was determined to stay he could do nothing about it.

  The evening before they were due to leave Daisy came waddling across to see him. ‘Want you to do
something for me,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Take that girl with you.’

  He looked at her. ‘She doesn’t want to come.’

  Daisy looked at him in good-natured contempt. ‘You don’t know much about women if you think that. She’d go off with you like a shot if she hadn’t got this nonsense in her head about staying here to help us. As if we ain’t managed fine by ourselves for the past twelve years. I’m not saying she ain’t been a help, mind, but this is no place for a girl her age. She wants to get out and see a bit more of the world while she’s still young. She won’t see it here.’

  ‘I don’t know what she’ll see if she comes with us.’

  ‘Somewhere different, at least,’ Daisy said fiercely. ‘She don’t want to stay in the bush with two old fogies like us.’

  ‘Rufe won’t like it,’ Matthew pointed out.

  ‘I’ll worry about Rufe,’ Daisy said. ‘You speak to Aggie.’

  Aggie was around the back of the cabin feeding the chooks. Matthew leant against the wall and studied her unobserved as she scattered grain for the clucking, scurrying birds.

  Watching her he felt the heat he always felt about an attractive woman. More significantly, he also felt the warmth of a growing affection, something more than affection perhaps. It was five years since he had last felt anything like this combination of heat and warmth. After Janice’s death he had told himself he would never allow himself to care for another woman: the pain had been too great. After five years he had thought himself immune to feeling and was happy it was so. Now all his resolutions were tumbling down and he found he was happy about that too.

  Aggie turned and saw him. Blood rose into her face. ‘You spying on me?’

  He unpeeled himself from the wall and walked slowly towards her. ‘Got to take my chances while I can,’ he told her. ‘We’ll be gone by morning.’

  Her foot scuffed a patch of rough grass. ‘I know.’

  ‘I want you to come along, too, Aggie.’

  She shook her head. ‘I told you—’

  ‘I know what you told me. I could tell you a pack of lies about how you ought to see more of the world, pretend it was for your good that I was asking but I won’t do that.’

  She smiled faintly. ‘You saying it wouldn’t be for my good?’

  ‘I’m not saying that. But you don’t want to stay here for the rest of your life and—’

  ‘You don’t know what I want.’

  ‘I know that much. It wouldn’t be sensible to bury yourself here forever and I’ve got you down as a sensible woman.’

  ‘My brother is buried here.’

  ‘I know that. I respect your feelings but, Aggie, staying here won’t make him any the less buried. Leaving won’t hurt him.’

  ‘It might hurt me,’ she said tartly, ‘but I suppose you hadn’t thought about that.’

  ‘I believe I have thought about it.’ He took her by her forearms and looked down at her. ‘Daisy and Rufe have got their own lives too.’

  She flinched as though he had struck her. ‘Rufe’s not fit.’

  Slowly Matthew shook his head. ‘You said it yourself, Daisy was handling the pair of them long before you came on the scene. It’s time you let her get back to her job.’

  ‘She needs me.’ Desperately.

  ‘No. You needed her after your brother died. Now it’s time to move on.’

  Her eyes searched his face. ‘But I don’t know you.’

  ‘Funny, that. I feel I’ve known you all my life.’

  She shook her head decisively and tried to pull her arms free from his grasp. ‘I couldn’t come with nothing to do. I’d go crazy.’

  ‘There’s always work on a cattle drive. We can find you some chores, if that’s what’s worrying you.’ He smiled, scenting victory, but did not release her. His head very close to hers he asked, ‘What do you reckon you can do?’

  ‘Anything a man can do.’ A flash of humour showed in her brown eyes. ‘Except for maybe one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Mister,’ she said, ‘you don’t know the difference between a man and a woman by now, I reckon it’s time you did.’

  ‘I’ll make you what I believe is a fair offer,’ he told her. ‘Come with us as far as Fort Bourke. See how you like the country. You want to leave when we get there I won’t try and stop you. You’ll be able to get back to Sydney from there if you want. Or you can come on for the rest of the journey, if you want that.’

  ‘And if you want it,’ she said.

  ‘It takes two,’ he agreed. He opened his hands and let her go. ‘We’re leaving tomorrow at first light. You want to come with us, be ready.’

  Aggie sat alone in the little shed where Daisy had put up a bed for her when she first arrived. In her mind she could see the scene out in the bush: the animals resting, the hands asleep about the dying fire, the dark shadows of the men on horseback, the empty bush stretching away silently to the invisible horizon. It was a world completely different from anything she had known before. One part of her wanted to accept the challenge; the other part warned it would be madness to do so. Matthew was part of it, of course, an important part. She was strongly attracted to him. He was strong, courageous, determined: all the qualities she most admired. She thought he was the finest man she had ever met. She wanted him, too. My God, she thought, how I want him. Whether that was a good reason to go off with him into the wilderness was another question. It was probably a good reason for not going.

  It is too risky, she thought. I should wait until another party comes through, a married couple, perhaps, with children. I shall be safer that way.

  The boys finished breakfast while it was still dark. The cattle, infected by the excitement of preparation, milled restlessly. After nine days of freedom Matthew could already taste the dust on his tongue and the sound of lowing bruised the darkness. He looked about him, frowning. A light burned inside the cabin but of Agatha Burroughs there was no sign.

  Charlton came over to him. ‘Ready when you are.’

  Charlton had noticed that Aggie had not appeared and was glad. He had a feeling that Matthew was likely to make a fool of himself over that girl. One woman, good cook though she was, was more than enough.

  ‘Five minutes,’ Matthew said. She is not coming, he thought, and was unprepared for the powerful disappointment he felt. He walked across the paddock to the cabin. Aggie or no Aggie, he could not leave without saying goodbye. An orange band of light widened along the eastern horizon while overhead the constellation of Orion pointed at the dawn. Behind the house a cockerel flew its voice at the moon. He knocked on the cabin door. Daisy opened it.

  ‘We’re off,’ he said. ‘I wanted to thank you for all your kindness.’

  ‘My kindness?’ She laughed a little, breath whistling. ‘You save my husband’s life and you talk about my kindness?’

  ‘There was a time there when I didn’t think he wanted his life saved.’

  ‘Rufe has always been a stubborn soul,’ Daisy agreed.

  ‘Not the only one around here.’

  ‘I don’t see why you think I’m stubborn.’

  ‘It’s not you. It’s—’

  ‘She’s ready now,’ Daisy said.

  Matthew stopped speaking, mouth open like a fool. The door opened further. Aggie was wearing a heavy coat and had a wide-brimmed hat on her head.

  He wanted to dance, to shout out loud. He said, ‘I thought you’d changed your mind.’

  ‘I changed it back again.’

  She turned to Daisy. The two women embraced.

  ‘Take good care of her,’ Daisy ordered Matthew.

  ‘Do my best.’ To Aggie he said, ‘Where’s your horse?’

  ‘Around the back.’

  They walked around the cabin together, feet crunching on the frost. He could barely credit that she was here, that she was actually coming with him. His feet felt light; he might have been walking a foot off the ground. The mare was alr
eady saddled. Aggie mounted and they made their way across the paddock.

  ‘Coming after all, then,’ Charlton said.

  ‘Yes.’ She recognised his disapproval but ignored it. He would soon get used to her.

  Charlton trotted away to speak to the hands. A few minutes later the herd began to move.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Stubbs trotted out of the timber, Wilma at his side, rode down the slope and forded the stream at the bottom. Boulders showed white above the water. Patchett was somewhere behind them, no doubt complaining to the trees and the rocks since his human companions had given up listening to him days ago.

  They trotted up the far slope and six men rode out of the timber ahead of them. They were well spaced out and Stubbs saw the sunlight glinting on the rifles they carried across their saddles.

  He reined in his horse, careful to keep his hands in view. At his side he heard Wilma’s sharp intake of breath, then she, too, stopped. The men stared down at them.

  ‘G’day,’ Stubbs offered.

  The faces were hostile yet the men looked more like farmers than bushrangers: not that that necessarily made them any less dangerous.

  ‘Ridin’ through?’

  The spokesman was a middle-aged man, solid and hard as an oak door, with a grey-streaked beard covering his chest.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How long you been in these parts?’

  ‘Only today. We left Sydney two weeks ago and we’re headed north.’

  ‘Any more of you?’

  ‘One more back down the trail. He’ll be here directly.’

  ‘So there’s three of you?’

  A sudden tension in the men told Stubbs it had been the wrong answer though he did not understand why. ‘Three,’ he agreed. ‘What about it?’

  ‘We’ll wait till your mate gets here, then we’ll tell you.’

  Five minutes later Patchett rode out into the sunlight. He saw the group of armed men and abruptly reined in his horse.

  ‘Come over here, Shanks,’ Stubbs shouted. ‘Ain’t nothing to worry about.’ I wish, he thought.

  There was a clink of metal as one of the men raised his rifle.