The Burning Land

by John Fletcher

  Charlton looked at the sky, as black as night. ‘We might be in for a whole lot more than we need.’

  Luckily they had brought a sturdy tent with them. They found a section of ground a foot or two higher than the surrounding plain and managed, with great difficulty, to pitch it so that its entrance faced away from the driving rain. They crawled in, laced the opening shut and lay down to wait the storm out.

  ‘It’s a harsh country,’ Matthew said, listening to the pelting rain.

  ‘A wonderful country‚’ Charlton corrected him, ‘but it don’t yield to fools.’

  ‘A man’s country‚’ Matthew said.

  ‘Ain’t nuthin wrong with that.’

  ‘Wonder how our bunch of cripples back at Fort Bourke will make out when we get where we’re going.’

  ‘They won’t stay‚’ Charlton said. ‘The boys are along for the drive. When it’s over they’ll head back.’

  ‘Maggie and Hud seem set on staying‚’ Matthew said.

  Charlton chuckled. ‘Ain’t they a pair? I don’ reckon either of ’em knows what they want. Mind you, I wonder sometimes if that ain’t true of all of us.’

  ‘I know what I want.’

  Charlton eyed Matthew shrewdly. ‘You want Aggie Burroughs.’

  ‘Aggie’s a great woman‚’ Matthew said. ‘She’s got more strength in her than most, I’d say, but I didn’t mean a woman.’ A trickle of rainwater had found its way through a seam in the canvas. Matthew wiped it away with a big finger. ‘As long as I can remember I wanted to come out here. When I was a kid there was a butterfly—’

  ‘Not too many butterflies in these parts‚’ Charlton said. He grinned. ‘Plenty of blowflies.’

  ‘It wasn’t the butterfly‚’ Matthew told him, ‘it was the idea of it. It burned me, all the time it burned me.’

  ‘Now you’ve seen it‚’ Charlton said, ‘what’s next? Move on again?’

  Matthew shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen it yet. When I do maybe I’ll think it’s time to put down roots.’ He gave a comfortable laugh. ‘My foster father had a hundred thousand acres but they took most of it off him because he couldn’t stock it. Out here a man could have a million acres and no one to argue with him.’

  ‘Except maybe the blacks‚’ Charlton said.

  ‘There’s room for them, too. This land is big enough for all of us.’

  ‘Maybe the blacks won’t see it like that.’

  ‘Then they’ll have to learn. We’re here to stay and I want my piece of it.’

  ‘Whether they like it or not.’

  ‘Damn right‚’ Matthew agreed. ‘Whether they like it or not.’

  The rain stopped at last, the sun came out to dry the land and as soon as they could move they returned to Fort Bourke.

  ‘No worries about water now‚’ Matthew said cheerfully.

  Two weeks later they passed the spot where they had waited out the storm. Now the plain was covered in lush grazing, already a foot high in places. Amid the grass wildflowers lay like jewels.

  ‘It’s beautiful‚’ Aggie said.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Matthew agreed, ‘but never turn your back on it.’ They rode along beside the slowly moving herd. ‘Sometimes I think we’re no better than a bunch of fools. I don’t think one of us knows what we’re doing out in this country.’

  ‘You hired the boys to drive cattle,’ she said. ‘That’s why they’re here.’

  ‘I’ll grant you the boys‚’ Matthew conceded. ‘They’re here to do a job of work and draw their pay. But what about the rest of us? What about Charlton? What about myself?’ He paused. ‘What about you?’

  ‘If you don’t know why you’re here I can’t tell you‚’ she said. ‘A man drives a herd of cows a thousand miles I’d say he ought to know why.’

  ‘When we were stuck in that little tent I was saying to Charlton I could maybe take up a million acres, where we’re going.’

  ‘Do you want a million acres?’

  They rode for a while in silence while Matthew thought about it.

  ‘Reckon I do‚’ he said eventually, ‘though Lord only knows why. I had over three hundred acres outside Sydney. Good land. Handy for the city if I felt like getting smartened up and going in for a steak and a beer with the governor. I don’t know what a million acres out here will give me that’s better than I had.’

  ‘They wouldn’t let you within a mile of the governor‚’ she told him. ‘You wouldn’t go even if they would. You want a million acres because of the way you are.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘You’re a big man. You need a big country to give you room to turn round in.’

  ‘A big country‚’ Matthew tasted the words. ‘That’s part of it, right enough.’

  ‘Only part? What’s the rest of it?’

  The right words were hard to find. ‘You and me and Charlton, we’re not just trying to get to somewhere. We’re moving away from somewhere, too.’

  She wrinkled her forehead. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I’d say the countryside down south is crowding up a little for my taste. When I was a kid we lived on a sheep run my parents opened up in the bush. We might have been the last people on earth. The only place around was Jim Jim and that wasn’t more than a dozen houses. By the time I left it was three times that size and I’ve no doubt it’s grown a lot more since. There’s river boats on the Murray, steam trains, last year I heard they’d even introduced an electric telegraph system. It’s getting like there’s no room for a man to breathe. There may not be much out here but at least there’s space.’ He grinned. ‘And what about you? Why are you here?’

  Silence for a spell. ‘I’ve got my reasons,’ she said eventually, and with that he had to be satisfied.

  Hud had thought to stay in Fort Bourke but Maggie wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘We ain’t come out here to live in a town. We’re here to minister to the settlers.’

  ‘Where we’re going there won’t be no settlers to minister to,’ Hud objected. ‘Plenty of people here. Don’t they need the word of God?’

  ‘We stay here, I’ll be having to sober you up every day until our money runs out. Fort Bourke ain’t why we left the farm.’

  Hud said nothing. When Maggie spoke in that tone of voice he knew better than to argue.

  Please God, he thought, let her be satisfied next time. But had no great hope of it.

  Nance had also thought of staying behind. She had had enough of the interminable journey. She wanted to stop, find somewhere to turn into the little cottage of her dreams. Fort Bourke was not what her imagination had depicted but she had no doubt it was a lot better than anywhere that lay ahead. From what she’d heard there was nothing ahead. A small farm that grew pumpkins and potatoes and beans on the outskirts of town seemed to Nance a very attractive prospect.

  ‘My bum’s that sore after sittin’ on that waggon these months,’ she said, trying to sound plaintive. ‘It’s time for a break.’

  Git would not hear of it. ‘No one’s going to say I walked off the job before it was finished.’

  ‘How much further is he going?’

  Git shrugged.

  ‘People in town say there ain’t nuthin north of here.’

  ‘Wouldn’t know about that.’

  And didn’t care either, by the sound of him, Nance thought. She was displeased but could see there was no hope of moving him so for the moment said no more.

  They were a week out of Fort Bourke when they first realised they had company. Charlton and Matthew were riding ahead of the herd when they came across hoof tracks that had come in from the west, then turned north to follow the left bank of the Warrego River.

  Charlton reined in his grey and inspected them. ‘Three riders‚’ he said.

  Three was a dangerous number. Numbers meant safety: there were usually more than three settlers in a party and they would always have at least one waggon with them, probably a few sheep or cattle, too.


  ‘Best keep our eyes skinned‚’ Matthew decided.

  ‘There’s too many of us for some sharp-shooter to take any chances‚’ Charlton said. ‘I wouldn’t expect no trouble.’

  ‘A rifle at a hundred paces is a great leveller,’ Matthew told him. ‘It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.’

  Yet by evening they had seen nothing but the tracks running on ahead of them, the hoof prints cut cleanly into the damp earth.

  That night Matthew decided to mount a guard over the camp. Like Charlton, Aggie thought he was making too much out of nothing.

  ‘I remember hearing of something like this‚’ he told her. ‘A family of settlers was stuck up and a woman stolen.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember where I heard it or anything about it but I don’t intend to let it happen to us.’

  ‘How far are we going?’ she asked him.

  ‘Until we get there.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the country around here?’

  ‘Too close to Fort Bourke. It won’t be too long before there’s river boats on the Darling. At least one’s been through Fort Bourke already. Next thing you know there’ll be a railway running right through here.’

  Aggie shook her head. ‘Not for a long time yet. What’s there here to come for?’

  ‘Space.’ Matthew took a deep breath as though he could draw the wide emptiness into his lungs. ‘Freedom. There’s room here for the biggest sheep run on earth.’

  Aggie despised such impractical notions. ‘Until it rained there was as much grass on these plains as you’d find in the middle of Sydney. Drought and heat‚’ she said, ‘that’s all you’ll get around here. I would have said it was pretty crook country for farming.’

  For a while there was silence between them while Matthew watched the firelight shifting red and gold across her features, shining in her eyes as she stared into the flames.

  ‘What you going to do?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m here, ain’t I?’ she said. ‘I’d not have come past Fort Bourke if I’d been planning to turn around and go straight back again.’

  ‘Why?’ Matthew asked. ‘If you dislike this country so much?’

  ‘I never said I dislike it. But it’s a hard place. Anyone who settles out here has got to be hard, too, else they won’t survive. Ain’t no room for dreaming.’

  They strolled away from the group of men clustered about the fire, past the waggon with the firelight glinting on the wheel spokes, until they came to the edge of the camp. They could hear behind them the faint murmur of voices, the barely audible crackle of flames, the sounds of the invisible herd. Ahead was silence. They stood side by side facing the wilderness.

  ‘I lived with sheep every day of my life until I was eighteen,’ Matthew said, ‘and I’ll tell you this. This country is too dry for cattle but it’ll be good for sheep.’

  ‘Why did you bring cattle then?’

  ‘Because everyone told me cattle did better out here. But they’re wrong. I can see a million sheep, spread out over a million acres of country. All of them carrying my brand.’ He laughed self-consciously. ‘Listen to me. We aren’t even there yet, wherever there is.’

  ‘I like listening to you,’ Aggie told him, ‘as long as what you’re saying makes sense. I ain’t much for dreams unless there’s something to back them up.’

  ‘I need something else,’ Matthew said. He had a problem getting his tongue around the words. ‘I wouldn’t want to do it alone.’

  She laughed. ‘With a million sheep you would hardly be alone.’

  He said, ‘I would want you to be there too.’

  ‘I’m here now, ain’t I?’

  He shook his head in frustration. ‘That isn’t what I meant. I meant—’

  Her hand on his arm cut off the words in his throat. ‘I know what you’re trying to say.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, relieved, and risked a glance at her.

  She smiled. ‘But you ain’t said it yet.’

  He stared out at the emptiness. As far as anyone knew there was not one human being living out there in all those millions of miles of space. Maybe a handful of settlers here and there who had pushed out ahead of proclamation to snatch their piece of territory, a few naked blacks wandering about, but that was all.

  ‘No one’s been out there,’ he said, wonderment in his voice, ‘never before in history. We shall be the first.’

  ‘I declare you’re enough to try my patience,’ Aggie said tartly. ‘You going to say something or not?’

  Courage came to him, a breath of air out of the empty land. ‘I’m saying it in my own fashion,’ he told her. ‘That land out there has been burning me as long as I can remember. All these years I’ve been getting ready for this moment. I’m going out there to take hold of it. It won’t be easy. We’ll have to fight all the way. But I intend to live to see these plains covered in sheep with my brand on them.’ He took her hands in his. ‘I want you to be with me when I see it.’

  ‘I ain’t goin’ no place.’

  ‘I want you to marry me.’ He almost shouted the words.

  ‘It surely took you long enough to say it‚’ she told him.

  He waited; she waited. Eventually he could wait no longer.

  ‘Well?’

  Aggie smiled. ‘You think Maggie would conduct the service?’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  After leaving the house Clive had crossed the creek and ridden south, a scarecrow figure on a bony horse, shirt and hair whipped by the wind. The cattle were scattered over a wide area and it took him several hours to round them up. By the time he had done so the rain was pouring from a sky as black as night. Crossing the creek in these conditions was out of the question. Scarcely able to see, saturated and battered by the fury of the storm, he drove the animals towards the only other high ground in the district: a steep-sided ridge of brown rock that in normal weather was a haven for basking lizards and birds of prey. Get the cattle there before the flood reached them and they would be safe.

  He only just made it, splashing through the swirling floodwater as they reached the foot of the ridge. Bellowing, terrified, the cattle scrambled like goats up the rock face. At the top of the ridge Clive dismounted and looked about him. Neither trees nor bushes grew here. There was no shelter of any kind. The harsh rock, fissured by a million years of weather, offered nothing but a refuge from the rising waters. In his race to get after the cattle Clive had brought with him neither waterproof coat, drinking water nor supplies; he had never envisaged the floodwaters rising so fast. Well, it was too late to do anything about it now.

  Mouth brassy with fear, Clive looked about him at the rising floodwaters. Get out of this, he thought, and we are leaving here. No arguments. We are going back south. I have a life to lead, too.

  Shoulders hunched against the cascading rain, saturated clothes clinging to his body, Clive settled down to wait.

  Wilma stood beside Schultz at the mouth of the little cave where they had taken shelter and stared out at the rain.

  ‘I can’t believe it‚’ Schultz said. ‘Years of drought and it has to rain now.’

  Wilma did not understand his anger. ‘At least there’ll be water.’

  He swore at her. ‘You don’ know nuthin about it,’ he said. ‘This rain’ll turn all this country to glue. We’ll barely be able to get along.’

  ‘What you going to do about it?’ she asked him.

  Schultz cursed again. ‘Ain’t nuthin I can do,’ he said.

  ‘How’re we going to manage?’

  ‘Eat snakes and lizards‚’ he told her roughly.

  She scoffed. ‘Snakes and lizards? I’m sure I don’t fancy nuthin like that.’

  ‘Go without, then. You ain’t no use anyway.’

  He was rough and hard, which was why Wilma understood him. She knew he would kill her without a second thought if it suited him. She would just have to make sure it didn’t suit him, that was all.

  She smiled
at him suggestively, hand on his arm. ‘You can’t say I’m no use for anything,’ she said.

  He glared at her. ‘I said it and I was right. Any woman could do what you do without making such a noise about it.’

  Waldo chortled wetly. ‘She certainly makes a noise,’ he said. ‘I heard her.’

  ‘So do you,’ Schultz told him, ‘every time you open your damned mouth.’

  ‘What are we goin’ to do?’ Waldo wanted to know, watching the pouring rain.

  ‘Wait until it stops, then push on again.’

  ‘Push on where?’

  ‘The way we’re goin’. Upriver.’

  ‘Don’ see the point,’ Waldo said. ‘There ain’t nuthin up there.’

  Schultz stepped forward and yanked Waldo up on tiptoe, one hand about his throat. ‘I don’ care whether you see the point,’ he told him. ‘There’s farms up there. Settlers. We can live soft further north. But that ain’t the point, Waldo. The point is we’re goin’ because I say so.’

  Waldo gasped and choked, struggling to free himself. Schultz opened his fingers and Waldo staggered back. Lips drawn back over his teeth‚ Schultz glared at Wilma. ‘You want to be smart too?’

  She met his gaze. ‘When I want to be smart you’ll know about it.’

  His face congested. He raised his hand.

  ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘You threatenin’ me?’ He laughed uproariously but his eyes remained cold.

  ‘Tellin’ you, more like. You hit me, you’d better kill me. You got to sleep sometime, mister, and when you do you might not wake up.’

  Schultz scowled. ‘You reckon I wouldn’t kill you?’

  ‘Not while I’m worth keeping alive.’ She smiled, showing him her teeth, her tongue. She tilted her hip at him. ‘And I am worth it, I really am.’

  He leered. ‘You’d better perform, then. I don’t go for promises.’

  ‘I’ll perform, all right.’ She laughed, confident of him. ‘If you ain’t careful, I’ll break your back.’

  ‘You might, at that,’ Schultz said, grinning. ‘Get lost,’ he told Waldo.

  ‘Where to?’