Daughter of Australia

by Harmony Verna

  “Orright,” Mrs. Monahan allowed. “But one apiece. No more.” She rolled her eyes. “Be gone ’fore the week’s out.”

  The men carried away cases of dried fruit, bags of white sugar and rice, chests of tea imported from China, tons of flour. A strong field man picked up the crate of rock salt and headed for the barn loft. Crockery, men’s work clothes, medicine, seeds and spices were unloaded and accounted for.

  “Come in and join us for supper,” invited Mr. Monahan as he handed off the last box. “Piece of sugar candy in it for you. If you can pry it out of their sticky hands, that is.”

  “Thanks, but got some tucker from town. I’ll just set up out here, stay outta yer way.”

  “Nonsense. Missus’ll take it as a personal affront.” Mr. Monahan turned away. “Don’t wait long or food’s gonna get cold.”

  When a man isn’t used to hot, good food he’s stubborn to eat it, because once he tastes it he remembers how much he’s missed it and how it’s going to be a long time before he tastes it again. So Ghan ate, spoke when spoken to and tried not to enjoy the food too much, tried not to close his eyes and cry from the sheer joy of butter and sugar and fresh beef on his tongue.

  That night he slept in the barn, up in the loft, shoved between the crates of rock salt and gunnysacks of seed. As far as places to sleep, it wasn’t half-bad—not bad at all. By the time the sun squeezed through the termite holes, Ghan was up and on his way back to the co-op.

  Mr. Fletcher inspected his pocket watch as the team drove up. He took a look at the animals, nodded with approval. “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “Got everythin’ they ordered.”

  “Course they did.” Mr. Fletcher put his hand on the rump of the bullock and leaned casually, his thin arms oddly long. “Good people, the Monahans.” He turned back to business. “O’Shaye’s still sick. Up fer another run?”

  “Take as many as yeh got.”

  Fletcher poked his tongue against his cheek. “Orright. I’ll load her t’day. Come back tomorrow an’ we’ll send yeh south t’Corrigin.”

  With the day now free, Ghan headed down the curve of the railroad. A row of Chinese, only pegs above slaves, droned and slumped over the rails. Ghan found the pub farthest from the center of town. Living off the land like he did, he treated himself to a nip now and then, especially when he finished a job. But only a nip; any more and the old anger shot back, and he was too old and worn to fight.

  Ghan entered the pub, his foot sucking on the sticky floor. Barely past noon and men lined each side. A barman, arms folded at his chest, leaned against the cracked mirror that reflected the bottles, tried to fool a man into thinking the bar was well stocked. A mustache drooped from his lip to his jawbone and stretched as he talked.

  Ghan pulled out a stool. The young man sitting next to it scooted over so he had room to sit at the counter. The barman raised his chin.

  “Schooner,” Ghan ordered.

  The man poured a pint of ale and splashed it on the counter but kept his fingers tight around the glass. “Yeh got money t’pay fer this?”

  “Didn’t come in here beggin’, did I?” Ghan snapped.

  The barman squinted, reluctantly let go of the glass and turned to the man next to Ghan. “More water?” he asked mockingly. The young man smirked and ignored him. The barman went back to his mirror and his chat.

  The ale was piss warm but hoppy, warmed his belly right up through the veins. Ghan sipped it slowly, no rush to go, no place to go until the next morning. Waiting. Waiting for work.

  Another young man entered the pub, a redhead faded by the sun. He sat down a seat over, nodded to the man next to him as a mate would. They were shaved and clean, tan from outdoor work but not slovenly like the shearers and roustabouts.

  “You talk to her?” the dark-haired one asked.

  “Said she’d give me a month before she tells him.” The redhead scratched an ear. “One stinkin’ month.”

  The barman walked over. “Whot yeh need, Tom?”

  “A job,” he answered bitterly, then shook his head. “Whiskey.”

  The man poured a shot. “Thought you made out pretty good last couple seasons.”

  Tom sipped his drink, stared into it. “Not good enough.”

  The quiet, dark-haired man spoke up, stretched his shoulders back. “Tom’s thinking we should head to the diggings.” He smirked then. “Thinks we’ll find the great nugget a thousand other men just overlooked.”

  Tom rested his elbows on the counter, slouched his weight. “Better than sittin’ around watchin’ the grass dry up.”

  “Listen to James,” ordered the barman. “Diggin’s no place for boys like you. Beats the hell outta a man, changes ’im, turns ’im mean an’ hard like the rocks he’s poundin’.”

  Tom laughed. “You’re like a bloody poet.”

  “Diggin’s no joke!” he retorted. “An’ no place fer you boys. I knew yer dad well, Tom. Know whot he used to say to any farmer wantin’ t’go out there? He’d say, ‘Impossible fer a man who works atop the land t’work under it wivout losin’ his mind.’ Trust me, stick wiv the land, mate. She’ll give yeh trouble, but she won’t fuck yeh.”

  Two sweaty men came in the front entrance. The barman gave them the silent nod, moved down to meet them.

  Ghan listened to the talk. Not eavesdropping, just listening the same way he listened to the glasses clinking on the table and the boots shuffling against each other. The barman was right. The diggings would eat these two clean boys for breakfast and spit them out in chunks.

  Ghan glanced sideways, stole a closer look. James, the one with the water, had a steadiness about him, a toughness without the show. Good-looking kid—even a bloke could see that and not feel like a poof. Brows were knit, looked like that was his natural expression, the thinking type. The other guy was the typical country kid, loose in posture, sulky but quick-witted.

  Ghan finished the last warm gulp. He’d set up camp, have some lunch, turn in early after the sun set. He pushed the glass along the counter and stood. The barman came back, took the glass. “One shilling.”

  Ghan reached into his pocket, fished around with his fingers. He took his other hand and dug deep in the other, his fingers twisting around the fabric, a hole widening in the seam.

  The barman watched him steadily, licked his top teeth. “Problem?” “Got it here, somewhere.” The pockets were empty, but he kept digging, trying to manifest the coins that were there this morning. “Must ’ave dropped out.”

  The man smacked the counter hard with his palm. Chatter halted, all eyes turned. “Knew yer were a bum when yeh walked in! This ain’t a fuckin’ charity ring! Now yeh pay that shilling or I take that peg off an’ beat the money outta yeh!”

  “I ain’t a bum!” Ghan snapped, but at that moment he was. “Just need to trace m’steps.”

  “Yeh’ll leave an’ stiff me fer the tab, yeh will!”

  “Ask Mr. Fletcher! I ain’t no bum!” spit Ghan. “He’s got me deliverin’ for ’im.”

  “Told yeh he was a lyin’ son of a bitch!” the barman announced to the group. “That’s O’Shaye’s job. Been doin’ it for two years.” He rolled up his sleeves and reached for a long stick across the back counter, pointed it at Ghan’s chest. “Listen, cripple—”

  The young man next to him pushed the stick away. “Back off!” James threw a few coins onto the counter. “It’s covered.”

  The barman flitted his eyes back and forth between the two men and tapped the stick on the bar. “Don’t go bailin’ out these bums, James. They gotta learn.”

  “He ain’t a bum,” James defended. “Now leave him be.”

  Tom rose, paid for his own drink, pushed the money at the stick. “Besides,” he taunted, “should be payin’ him for makin’ us drink that horse piss. Buy a cooler, yeh cheap bastard.”

  Some of the men laughed. The barman lost his anger. “Yeh got some pluck, Tom.” He put the stick back under the mirror. “Just like yer dad.”

>   Ghan pulled out the lining of his pocket and showed it to James. “Must have dropped out.” He rubbed his scraggly beard, the shame hot in his ears.

  James patted him on the shoulder. “No worries.”

  Ghan couldn’t soothe the burn of the handout, and when the two young men left the pub he followed. “Hold up! Give m’yer post an’ I’ll get the money back t’yeh. Get paid tomorrow. Can ask Mr. Fletcher at the co-op yerself. I ain’t a bum.” The words repeated in his head over and over again. I ain’t a bum. I ain’t a bum.

  James smiled, waved him off. “Only a drink, mate. My treat.”

  That man did him a good deed—saved him from getting his few teeth knocked out. Ghan hurried on his peg leg and stopped them again. “Heard yer lookin’ for work.”

  “Yeah.” Tom stepped forward. “Know of any?”

  “New chap comin’ to run the mine outta Coolgardie. American fella. Word is he bought a couple of bush stations an’ needs workers—drovers, stockmen, shearers, jackeroos, managers, the works.” Ghan pulled himself up. He wasn’t a bum. “Know ’bout it ’cause I brought a load of wood up there. Buildin’ everything fresh. Get in there first, yeh could probably pick yer job.”

  That young man, James, had that thinking look again, his face intense and alert. “Where’d you say the station is?”

  “Up near Leinster. Part of the old Miranda Creek Station.”

  “Appreciate the tip.” James reached out a hand. “Did us a good service, sir.”

  Ghan puffed out his chest. Sir, he said. He shook the hand offered and the shame melted away. I ain’t a bum.

  CHAPTER 41

  “Bronson said he’d move into the old manager quarters,” said Tom haltingly. “Keep an eye on you an’ the girls.”

  Mrs. Shelby’s face turned fierce. “Already said I can handle a gun as good as any man.”

  “I know. Everybody knows,” appeased Tom. “But if people hear there’s not a man here, you might have t’use that gun. Bronson’ll stay outta the way; you know that. He’ll just sit on his stoop with his gun. More show than anything. Gives the poor bloke a purpose.”

  When Tom finished, they waited, the silence expanding uncomfortably across the table. Tom’s nerves frizzled. “Course, that’s only if we get the job. Long shot for sure, but we’d be kickin’ ourselves if we didn’t try.”

  Mrs. Shelby had aged; the corners of her eyelids drooped. Gray wiry strands lined the roots of the red hair piled and pinned on her head. She shifted her eyes to Tom, to James and then back to Tom. “Why you so desperate for money all of a sudden?”

  Tom squirmed in his chair, reddened. “Taxes, Mum. Girls getting’ older.” He floundered, “Drought comin’.”

  “You’re in trouble, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question. Mrs. Shelby pulled in her bottom lip, stretching the skin on her chin. A great pleading held her eyes. “What you do, Tommie?”

  Tom’s mouth fell open. The blush drained and left his face pale.

  “Nothing that can’t be undone,” James interjected. “We’re going to make it right, Mrs. Shelby. But we got to get work. Good work.”

  The woman nodded in quick spurts, raised her head and sucked air in through her nose. “Orright. I’ll speak with the renters about sharecropping.” Mrs. Shelby pointed to the office, avoiding her son’s face. “Tommie, go fetch the books.”

  Tom slinked away, the shame turning his gait crooked. “Boy’s got no sense.” The weariness grew and sagged her jaws, aging her further. “Is the trouble bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Take care of him, James.” Mrs. Shelby closed her eyes. “Make things right.”

  “I will.” James nodded. “Promise.”

  “Coolgardie!” the conductor shouted above the roar of the steam engine.

  “That’s us.” James grabbed his pack from the seat.

  Through the steam and smoke and wheels still burning from movement, they stepped off the train into a town of metal and looked up into a sky loud and crowded with roaring pistons and distant clangs. Rows of railroad tracks, lined with filthy ore cars, veered in clogged veins from the heart of the station. The smell of soot and oil and coal clung to the air. The clash of train cars coupling and grunting sent the eardrum retreating like a turtle’s head in a shell. Miners, blackened and rough, dotted the platform and weaved between the cars. A mix of accents—Italian, Polish, Ukrainian—blurred with Australian slang, guttural and nearly indiscernible.

  Two dark-eyed men sat atop a donkey cart, their cheeks swollen with tobacco. They snickered at the new arrivals, pointed to their pressed clothes. Tom hiked his bag up his shoulder in case he needed to hit someone with it. “Feel like a fish outta water about to get gutted.”

  James crossed a set of tracks and approached the men. “G’day,” he greeted curtly.

  The man to the right spit on the ground, left a red phlegm splotch near James’s boot. “Waitin’ fer a buggy, sweetie?”

  James ignored him. “You work at the mine?”

  “Me an’ everybody else ’ere.”

  “Heard there’s a new manager coming in. You know anything about him?”

  The threat in their faces left as they took on the look of men who suddenly found themselves a fraction superior with knowledge. They stretched their necks to meet the sought counsel. “ ’Arrington. Yankee bloke. Loaded son of a bitch.”

  “Got a station around here?”

  The men laughed. The left one spit. The tobacco landed on the foot of the donkey, who shuffled and kicked it away.

  “What’s so funny?” Tom asked.

  “Yeah. He’s got a station. More like a country. Over three million acres, they say.”

  The other man, not to be outdone, leaned in and added, “Bloke’s got a hundred thousand head of cattle on hold. Got horses, too. Bringin’ ’em in from Middle East somewheres.”

  “Sawdi ’Rabia!” chimed the other man.

  “They hiring?”

  The man shrugged his shoulders, his help burned out.

  “Know where we can catch a ride?” Tom asked.

  “Ask at McKellar’s pub. Usually get a hitch there.”

  “Thanks.” James tipped his hat and the men went back to stretching, chewing and spitting, watching the metal bang across metal.

  “Think he was jokin’ about three million acres?” Tom asked.

  “Guess we’ll find out.”

  The driver of the old dray swayed in his seat from drink, singing a mix of three songs tied into one. He pulled the gray packhorse to a stop on a lone road, one side wired waist high with a fence that went on as far as the eye could see. “This ’ere the start of the property,” he said. “Hole in the fence give yeh a shortcut to the house. Far as I can take yeh.”

  Tom and James stepped out to the red earth. Spinifex dotted the landscape, rose like hairy moles on sunburned skin. They climbed through the fence and walked ahead, stayed focused on the direction of the sun. After an hour, they passed a rusty windmill. Tom paused, stared up at the still blades. “Think that drunk had any idea where he was sendin’ us?”

  James laughed, wiped the dust and sweat from his forehead. “Nope.”

  “Christ, we’re screwed.” They stopped then, looked around, every inch of land the same. “We’re bloody lost.” Tom chuckled.

  “We’re dead, mate.”

  “We’ll be shriveled like raisins.” Tears streamed down Tom’s cheeks with tired, thirsty roars of laughter.

  James pulled out a canteen, drank through a spread smile, then handed it to Tom. “So much for clean clothes, eh?”

  Tom examined his shirt littered with dirty, red handprints. “I’m a bloody mess.” Then he scanned James. “How the hell you keep so clean?”

  James clicked his tongue. “I’m a gentleman.”

  Tom shoved him in the shoulder, leaving a picture of his palm near the collar. James ignored him and perked, his eyes squinting into the distance. “Looks like a car.” He pointed to a small dust cloud that moved in a p
arallel line. “Must be the place.”

  They moved quickly, keeping their eyes locked on the trail of dust so as not to lose it. From the horizon, buildings slowly emerged over the level ground like sprouted seeds. First an old whitewashed barn. Then a dented windmill, its shadow pointing east. Another barn popped up followed by a twenty-stall shearing shed, a ringed stable, three water towers. Beyond that, the big house loomed with fresh yellow brick and a gleaming iron roof. A screened verandah edged its girth, mounted by a metal bullnose that stuck out like lips.

  James and Tom patted down their shirts and pants, wiped faces with clean handkerchiefs. A workman straddled the peak of a new roof, the stable big enough to hold thirty horses. James hollered up to him, “Looking for Mr. Harrington!”

  The man pointed his hammer, spoke between nails held in his teeth, “Jist got back.”

  Dropping their packs behind the barn, they headed to the drive, past the new Ford, its chrome covered in dust. The front door of the house opened. A man stepped out, yelled behind him, “Just tell them to get it here!” the American accent quick and direct.

  The man wore beige riding pants and a starched white shirt opened far down at the collar and rolled up at the sleeves. He paused on the steps, lit a cigarette, his cheekbones prominent as he breathed in the tobacco before noticing the two men. A smile rose to his face and he clapped in drawn applause, the new cigarette hanging easily and expertly from his lips under a thin mustache. “It’s about time! I was expecting you two days ago.”

  Tom shot James a furtive glance from the side, raised his eyebrows with the unwarranted familiarity. “Train schedule was off,” he offered tentatively.

  “Not surprised.” The American stepped up in high black boots, the foot dirtied to the ankle, the calf still shiny with polish. “Of course, it takes so long to get to the telegraph office, it’s hard to know what to expect from one day to the next.” He looked them over and laughed. “You’re filthy. You walk here?”

  “Got a ride from Coolgardie,” Tom explained. “Bloke dropped us off a little short.”