A Far Country

by John Fletcher

‘They’re ritual scars,’ Ian corrected him. ‘He may have been one of us once but not any longer. As for the other one …’

  ‘What about him?’ Gavin was displeased, not about to accept criticism in his own house.

  ‘He’s a savage, Gavin. They’re all savages. Keeping him here is asking for trouble. I’ll tell you something else: our boys don’t like it. If you don’t get rid of him they may decide to do something about it themselves. I for one wouldn’t blame them if they did.’

  Gavin glared, master here and intending to stay that way. ‘Any man lays a finger on either of them, he’ll answer to me for it.’

  In the kitchen Asta, Mary and Alison were surrounded by the warm steam of cooking.

  ‘Ian says you have a black man here,’ Mary said.

  ‘Two of them,’ Asta corrected her.

  Mary looked more flustered than ever. ‘Two? But I thought—’

  ‘Sinbad the shepherd,’ Asta said. ‘And Michael. He’s quite young. More of a boy, really.’

  ‘Oh Sinbad …’ Mary dismissed him as too familiar to pose any threat. ‘Ian says the wild ones are dangerous.’

  ‘Can be, I am sure,’ Asta agreed, ’as we are.’

  A typical Asta remark, Mary thought, the sort Mary hated, never knowing whether she was supposed to take it seriously or not. She decided not to hear it.

  ‘Why did the men bring Michael back with them?’

  Asta inspected the contents of an iron pot through a gushing cloud of steam. ‘By accident. I wanted them to rescue the white boy but the black one was with him so they brought them both.’

  She replaced the lid; the rush of steam was cut off.

  Alison had been listening round-eyed. She asked, ‘What is the white one’s name?’

  ‘Jason.’

  ‘Jason what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Asta laughed. ‘It was hard enough to get that much out of him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The black people like to keep their names secret.’

  ‘You said he was white,’ Alison objected.

  ‘I think perhaps he picked up some of their ideas.’

  ‘Does that make him a savage, too?’

  A good question, Asta thought. ‘Not very savage. The two of them are digging a well down in the gully. If you go down there you will see them.’

  Alison hesitated. ‘He’s not like Blake, is he?’

  ‘Not at all like Blake,’ Asta told her. ‘He may be savage but I do not think he is cruel.’

  ‘Don’t go far.’ Mary was uneasy at the idea of her daughter leaving the house when there were such men about, savage or not.

  ‘She will be safe enough,’ Asta assured her. To Alison she said, ‘Your mother is right. You need be afraid of neither of the boys we have here but there are others in the bush, as you well know.’

  Not only in the bush, she thought, thinking of Blake.

  ‘I hate the idea of the blacks,’ Mary confessed after Alison had run outside, banging the door behind her. ‘I know that one of these nights they will break in and kill all of us.’

  ‘I understand they do not move at night.’

  ‘Day or night,’ Mary said, ‘what difference does it make?’

  *

  Blake Gallagher was chopping firewood. He stood at the woodpile, shirt off, axe blade shining in the sun, revelling in the air on his bare skin, the pull of his muscles, the solid thunk, thunk, as the axe head buried itself repeatedly in the sawn blocks of wood that he was reducing systematically to kindling.

  The door of the house opened and Alison came out. Blake watched as she crossed the corner of the paddock towards the gully fifty yards away.

  Going to the new well, then.

  He scowled. He had always despised her for being soft, for being a girl, but these days was beginning to think differently about such things. If she wanted to talk to someone, what was wrong with him? At least he wasn’t a savage. He watched her figure flitting lightly through the trees. She was pretty, he thought. Too pretty to waste on the likes of Jason and his black mate. His scowl darkened. Have to do something about them two, he thought. Reckon they’ve over-stayed their welcome. As for Alison … She needed someone to show her the difference between a savage and a proper man. His scowl dissolved into a slow smile. Heated by images of white flesh, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Keep her in line, like. He reckoned he’d enjoy that.

  He turned back to the stack of freshly cut timber gleaming the colour of cream in the sunlight. He hefted the axe, brought the head crashing down.

  At the fringe of the trees, Alison paused and stared at the new well in the centre of the clearing. There wasn’t much to see; a wooden tripod six feet high with a rope disappearing into the ground beneath it, a pile of yellow earth off to one side. No sound, no movement. Cautiously she stepped closer. Somewhere in the bush a bird gave a long, bubbling call. The rope from the tripod tightened and began to shake.

  The silent movement scared her but she stood her ground. They are only boys, she reminded herself. What harm can they do me?

  Heart pattering for all her brave thoughts, she waited until a head appeared above the rim of the hole and a young man climbed out into the light.

  He was filthy, dressed only in breeches, his body streaked and clotted with yellow mud. Beneath the mud his skin was white. He turned and for the first time saw her watching him. Momentarily he froze, then dropped the rope and walked slowly towards her.

  I will not run, she told herself.

  ‘Who are you?’ Jason’s tone was unfriendly.

  Alison’s chin went up. ‘I am Alison Matlock. My uncle owns this run.’

  Jason’s sardonic eyes studied her. ‘Is that so? What are you doing here, then?’

  ‘I wanted to see what you were doing.’

  Jason studied her silently, seeing the slight quiver of her lip, the way she tried to conceal her fear of him. It was the girl he had seen from the bushes the day he had come with Nantariltarra to talk to the white people. It was sight of her that had reminded him that he was not a black man or ever would be, that these were his people, after all.

  But were they? How could they be, after what they had done?

  She was staring at the scars on his chest. ‘Did you have an accident?’

  He shook his head. ‘They were deliberate.’

  ‘They tortured you?’ she asked, awed.

  He laughed. ‘No. They do it so you can show how brave you are.’

  ‘Are you brave?’ she asked him seriously.

  ‘Very brave.’

  She looked around her. ‘Where is your friend?’

  ‘Down the hole.’

  Jason stepped over to the well head and shouted down the shaft in a language Alison did not understand.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told him to come up.’

  Jason liked her for controlling her fear of him. Scars and all, she made him feel normal for the first time since he had come here and he liked her for that, too. He watched her as Mura emerged from the hole, his black skin shining with water and daubed with clay. She did not flinch as a lot of white women would have done.

  ‘This is Michael,’ he told her. ‘He is my friend.’

  Mura recognised the word friend. His white teeth gleamed as he smiled. ‘Fren’,’ he repeated, touching his chest with the tips of his fingers.

  The black boy, the white girl, stood examining each other with interest.

  ‘She is the child of the other one,’ Mura said to Jason. ‘The one from the place where we first met them. Has he come here, too?’

  ‘Probably.’ To Alison, Jason said, ‘I saw you the first day. Do you remember? When I talked to your father.’

  She nodded. ‘When you told him the black people would kill us all if we didn’t go away.’

  Jason stared at her. ‘I never said that.’

  *

  Ian Matlock smiled humourlessly and lifted the rifle a few inches. ‘This is the only right I
need.’

  ‘You’re saying there’s no place for them in their own land.’

  Ian glared. ‘They get in my way, I’ll kill them.’

  ‘You’re not the only one, remember. You’ve got women here, too.’

  Angrily Jason said, ‘Instead you came that night and killed them. For nothing.’

  Alison nodded, face serious. ‘They were frightened you might do it. They thought they should get in first.’

  His liking for her vanished at the thought that he might have had something to do with what had happened.

  ‘They did it because they wanted the land! That was the only reason!’

  Alison seemed no more afraid of his anger than she had been of Mura, emerging from the well like a demon from the pit. ‘Papa told me he paid the government for the land. It belongs to him. The reason he went with Uncle Gavin and the others that night was because you told him they would come and kill us.’

  Jason stared at her. ‘I never said we would kill anyone.’

  But had meant it.

  Ian thumbed back the hammer of the rifle. ‘Get out! Before I use this.’

  And his reply: ‘You’ve got women here, too.’

  *

  What else was that supposed to have meant? What else could Ian Matlock have understood by it?

  All of a sudden he hated her. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Before he could stop himself he was shaking her. ‘I could drop you down the shaft for making out it was my fault!’

  He let her go. She edged away but her voice when she spoke was unafraid. ‘It was your fault! If you hadn’t said what you did they wouldn’t have done it!’

  And, turning, ran away from them through the trees.

  Jason watched her go. She came to be friends, he thought, and I drove her away.

  His mind seethed with memories. Of Ian Matlock raising his rifle and his own instinctive reaction. Of the nightmare scene of death and terror, of screams and swirling clouds of biting smoke.

  His fault?

  The running figure of the girl had disappeared.

  He thought, The last time I threatened them they brought their guns. What will they do when she tells them I threatened to drop her down the well shaft?

  ‘We’re off,’ he said to Mura.

  ‘Where do we go?’

  ‘Find the clan, of course. What else?’

  Mura shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ Jason stared at him, knowing the answer before he heard it.

  ‘They will not accept you now.’

  ‘What happened wasn’t my fault!’

  Wasn’t it?

  Mura said nothing.

  Anguish turned to anger. ‘Why stay, then? If you blame me?’

  ‘You saved my life,’ Mura said simply.

  It was not the only reason. He had discovered that the white men knew many secrets unknown in the ages-old world of the clan. He wanted to learn those secrets, not turn his back on them.

  Jason said, ‘When that girl tells them what I said there’ll be hell to pay.’

  There was nothing he could do about it. If the clan truly had turned its back on him he would have to stay where he was, whatever the consequences.

  ‘Let’s get on with the damn well, then,’ he said furiously, and swung himself over the lip of the hole.

  Their future—even their survival, perhaps—depended on what the girl said when she got home.

  ‘Thank God!’ Mary said as Alison came into the house. Relief made her cross. ‘What took you so long?’

  Asta studied Alison’s eyes, unnaturally bright in her flushed face. ‘Did you find them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were they savage?’ Teasing.

  ‘Not savage at all. I liked them.’

  Especially Jason, she thought but did not say. As far back as she could remember, Edward had been her idol. Jason had made her feel the same way. He was not a savage but as soon as he spoke to her she knew that he was someone who would not let anyone tell him what to do. Edward had been like that. One day she wanted to be like that herself. Jason had been angry and had scared her but now she was annoyed with herself for running away. She knew that tomorrow she would go back and see him again.

  ‘Jason was nice,’ she said.

  *

  After it was dark Blake came out from the shed where he had been pretending to sleep and made his way cautiously around the corner of the building. The surrounding swell and fall of land lay floating in the cold light of a full moon. Shadows of buildings and trees lay black upon the brilliant surface of the ground and overhead, dimmed by the blaze of moonlight, stars glittered in a clear sky.

  Without haste, Blake made his way to the small barn crammed with hay where he knew Jason and the blackfeller would be sleeping. At the back of the house a dog barked once, sleepily, and Blake froze, another shadow in the moonlight. Silence returned and he passed on. The night air stung his lungs and he shivered. Winter had set in.

  The barn door stood an inch or two ajar. He paused, testing the texture of the darkness within. All was still. Cautiously, without turning his head, he let his eyes move around the buildings, the railed paddock where the clustered sheep grazed audibly in the moonlight, the hills beyond. The sounds of grazing accentuated the stillness. Nothing moved.

  Let’s do it, then.

  He teased a handful of straw into a loose ball, dug his tinder box from his pocket.

  Set this lot ablaze, the barn would go up in seconds.

  Blake steadied the tinder box in his hands.

  Hector Gallagher did not believe in taking chances. He had never believed the yarn that the blacks never moved at night. If you had an enemy and wanted to attack him, what better time could there be?

  He was not a man who needed much sleep and had got into the habit of spending half the night sitting up in a gully he had found halfway up the hill. The massive trunk of a gum tree was at his back so that nothing could come at him from the rear and he was free to concentrate on the buildings of the run spread out two hundred yards below him and clearly visible in the moonlight.

  He saw the shadowy figure come out of the darkness and cross stealthily towards the hay barn.

  Quick as thought, Hector was on his feet. He had his rifle but in the moonlight it was too long a shot to risk. He would have to get closer. Besides, shooting might not be the best answer.

  Never came at night, did they?

  His lips parted in a savage grin, instantly extinguished. Catch him and question him first, that was the way. The killing could come later.

  Carefully his eyes searched the ground separating him from the buildings but nothing stirred. The intruder was alone.

  Hector moved stealthily down the hill, a deadly shadow in the moonlight. He reached the nearest building, flicked an eye around the angle of the wall.

  Nothing.

  He moved a yard or two, conscious of sweat starting along his hairline. He paused. Looked again.

  Again nothing.

  The dazzling mix of moonlight and shadow made it difficult to see anything. He moved another foot, looked again, hand sweaty on the stock of his gun.

  A figure crouched at the door of the barn. Hector could not see what he was doing. He hesitated. He had meant to grab him; now was unsure. The man was up to some mischief, that was certain. He was bound to be armed. Where was the point of getting into a scrap with him? It made more sense to knock him over from here. That way there would be no danger: at ten yards he could hardly miss.

  He clicked back the hammer of his rifle and raised the butt to his shoulder. The sound must have carried; the figure straightened, turning swiftly towards him. Hector’s trigger finger tightened.

  Gavin sat up.

  ‘What was that?’

  Even as he spoke he was out of bed, dragging on breeches, thrusting bare feet into boots. He pushed his arms into his shirt, snatched up the rifle that he always kept primed and ready against the wall beside the bed and ran to the
door.

  ‘What is it?’ Asta stared at him from the bed.

  ‘Sounded like a shot.’

  ‘Be careful …’

  Asta’s warning died disregarded on the night air behind him. Rifle in hand, he raced out into the moonlight.

  For a moment he could see nothing beyond a confusion of shadow and brilliant light, then made out two figures standing by the door of the hay barn. He ran towards them. They turned to face him: the Gallaghers.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Hector answered. ‘Saw a blackfeller. Thought he was trying to set the barn on fire. I took a shot at him but I reckon I must’ve missed.’ His voice quavered; he sounded like an old man.

  Gavin squinted at him in the darkness. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Why not?’ Belligerently.

  Now was not the time to argue the point. Gavin peered into the moon-dazzled darkness. ‘Where did he go?’

  Hector waved his hand towards the bush. ‘That way.’

  ‘Was he alone?’

  Before Hector could answer the barn door creaked open. Jason stood there, eyes half-sealed with sleep. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Someone tried to burn the barn,’ Gavin answered abruptly. ‘Your mate there, is he?’

  Jason was wary. ‘They don’t go out in the dark.’

  Gavin exploded in exasperation. ‘This fellow tried to make bacon out of you! Get Michael out here, see if he can find any tracks. If we get on with it we may still have a chance to catch him.’

  ‘Too late,’ Blake said. ‘He’ll be long gone.’

  Jason turned back into the darkness of the barn. The men by the door heard the murmur of voices. Eventually Mura sidled into the moonlight. His eyes, wide and apprehensive, watched the darkness.

  ‘Get on with it, man,’ Gavin said impatiently. Now was not the time to be too tender about the black’s fear of darkness. Someone had tried to burn down one of Gavin’s buildings and he wasn’t going to let him get away with it if he could help it.

  Mura shuffled forward, Jason beside him, the men bringing up the rear. Mura’s shoulders were hunched, his eyes quartering the ground. For a time he stood motionless, eyes seeking, then raised his head and spoke to Jason.