One

by Patrick Holland

‘Because I’m scared. That’s why. Where does this end, Jim? Where the fuck does this end?’

  Jim pulled his horse to a halt.

  He drew his revolver. Pulled back the hammer.

  Tom’s eyes fell. He sighed.

  ‘Then let it be.’

  But the shot did not come.

  Jim pulled his kerchief down. The look on his face – Tom thought he knew the cold sun-scarred and wind-bitten face he would see under that kerchief. But the eyes were closed. Distant. As in prayer.

  Jim shivered. He fought the words he was speaking.

  ‘If you … If you go to the police–’

  ‘I know, Jim.’

  Tom took his canister from his wallet.

  ‘Here, Jim. There’s rum in it.’

  Jim took the canister and wiped rain from his eyes with his kerchief.

  Tom Lawton rode back towards the lights they had passed earlier in the night. He rode into the town and went to the hotel. Two white-haired drunks with whisky-stained moustaches were still at the bar. One turned in his chair to look at the stranger.

  ‘Not another policeman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll say not,’ said his companion. ‘This one looks like he’s just ridden out of hell.’

  Two other men who had been sitting at a table in a dark corner of the saloon came to the bar. A tall bushman and a short and red-faced Scotsman with a bowler hat.

  ‘So what matter of man are ye?’

  Tom Lawton did not answer. He stared at the men and laughed. He turned back to the bar and put down money for a bottle of whisky and filled the two old timers’ glasses.

  ‘And you two can fuck off.’

  ‘You look like a man I know,’ said the short man. ‘A man I am lookin for.’

  Tom took a shot of whisky and turned on his seat.

  ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘I say you’re Thomas Fiacre Lawton.’

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘Do you know where Jim Kenniff and Paddy Kenniff are?’

  Tom laughed and poured another shot of whisky.

  ‘Yes.’

  The red-faced Scotsman nodded. He took off his bowler hat and squinted at Tom and spoke with great solemnity.

  ‘It is given to me to kill those men. And Jim Kenniff especially.’

  Tom drank again. He smiled.

  ‘Well, well. That’s a hell of a thing to be given to. I’d hate to be given to it.’

  ‘You will tell me where they are.’

  ‘Will I?’

  ‘Yes. Or my friend here will drag you off that chair and shoot you in the street.’

  Tom looked at the dull-eyed low-browed rake of a man who stared at him with stupid menace writ on his face.

  Tom smiled.

  ‘If he tried, I’d kill him dead.’ The tall man stepped closer. Tom eyed him. Then looked at the red-faced Scotsman. ‘Then you wouldn’t be much good, would you? Then I’d shove a crowbar up his arse and impale you along with him and stand you both in that same street for the lizards to pick at as they pleased.’ He shook his head. ‘Fuck me, I could do that, too. Once I was a man. I hope to be a man again. But God help you if you run into Jim Kenniff.’

  ‘Laddy, we two have killed black chiefs and ringleaders of miners and Irish down south.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be done your killin if I tell you where Jim Kenniff is.’

  The Scotsman stood silent. Waiting. Tom shook his head and laughed.

  The Scotsman drew a revolver and pointed it between Tom’s eyes.

  ‘Talk.’

  Tom smiled. He said nothing.

  The Scotsman spat and sneered and put the gun in his belt.

  ‘No matter. We can follow your tracks.’

  ‘I hope those tracks lead you to him.’

  He took half a bottle up to a room above the bar and drank and watched the night. The town’s two gaslights were out. There was only the shallow moonlit street. The wind. A stray dog chasing rubbish.

  He thought on he and Jim and James Homer and all those boys … when they were boys … And he thought on how Jim had loved his sister. Fought for her. That day he throttled a boy for dishonouring her, when every other man and boy of them had been frightened to touch the bastard, for he was well-born and she was without family. He had gone to the lockup for her, and in his mind Tom saw Jim’s face. Bloodied and broken with the same marks across his cheek that he bore now, from where that boy’s father had pistol whipped him before dragging him by a rope to the lockup. Tom spoke to his sister now as though in prayer, as though she were standing beside him. Standing beside him or somewhere in that infinite dark without.

  ‘Forgive me, little girl.’ Tom cried. He leant his face on the windowpane. ‘But he’s beyond everything now. Forgive me sweet girl.’ But when he pictured his sister’s face he could not make the face smile at him.

  He cried.

  ‘So you tell me what to do!’

  They hid in an island of light timber. Paddy sat watch but sleep overcame him. Jim woke and saw him lying down on the ground beside the black trunk that had been propping him up. Jim watched the night. There was only a light breeze and nothing much moved. The fire still glowed and he blew a little on the embers and watched his brother sleep, the relief on his face, and he smiled.

  Just then Paddy woke, sat bolt upright and looked around in the dark, apologising to his brother and saying that he did not know how he had fallen asleep.

  ‘Sleep,’ said Jim. ‘I can stay awake longer.’

  He put his hand on Paddy’s shoulder.

  ‘Go back to sleep.’

  But at dawn he saw a rider coming across the plain. He pulled his rifle from his scabbard, checked the breech and snapped the barrel shut.

  ‘God, will you never let me rest?’

  He looked at Paddy, still sleeping. Then he looked back at a man sliding as quietly as he could off his horse. Jim put the rifle on his knee and his eye to the sight. Only walk up to the camp like that, he thought, and I will shoot you dead before you see my face. But there were two men now.

  Jim got on his elbows and started moving through the long grass.

  The patrol worked their way across the plain at evening. There came the sound of horses in a corridor of timber in the twilight in the west. The patrol was exposed. They stood their horses and readied their guns.

  Two horses came out of the timber. One with an upright rider; the other horse carried something large across the saddle. Then the riders stopped dead still. Not near enough in the dark for any kind of recognition, but each party was within rifle range of the other.

  Nixon looked over at the Skillington boy who had dismounted and sat his rifle across the saddle of his mare. His finger was in the housing. Nixon whispered,

  ‘Go easy, boy. Take your finger off that trigger.’

  ‘Yes, Sarge.’

  King Edward squinted.

  ‘It isn’t them, boss.’

  Nixon called across the wind.

  ‘State your name and business in the name of the Law.’

  A relieved voice came clear across the grass.

  ‘Aye, Lord in heaven have mercy. Thank God it’s you.’

  The rider trotted his horse forward.

  The Skillington boy lowered his rifle.

  ‘It’s the mercenaries.’

  But only one – the short man with the scarf. The tall mercenary’s body was slung across the packhorse.

  Nixon did not resheath his rifle.

  ‘You’re responsible for the death of two innocent men.’

  ‘What innocent men?’

  ‘Two scalpers you shot and tried to pass off as Jim and Paddy Kenniff.’

  ‘Aye, true. An honest mistake. But only one of us has lived to regret it. Anyway, those scalpers opened fire on us first. That’s why we assumed.’

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘We ran into the Kenniffs, alright.’ He looked behind him at the darkening bloating face of his former partner. ‘As you see.’
/>
  Nixon spat.

  ‘You taking him home for a good Christian burial?’

  ‘Aye. He always stuck by me. But give me water.’

  The mercenary coughed blood. He was shot through the left shoulder and the bone was shattered. But the bullet had not exited.

  ‘I found tracks,’ he said. ‘Fresh prints of horses. We figured we’d rode near enough and high enough to meet them at an advantage. We rode out of rocks onto a grass flat and there was nothing around us. Not for miles. Then we hear a voice directly behind us, we turn around and there he is with a gun levelled at my man. I swear to God he just rose up out of the dirt as if by magic. There wasn’t a bloody thing out there to hide behind. One minute there’s nothing. Then he’s there. He shot my partner dead on his horse but not out of his stirrups. I ran for cover. He chased me and shot me down too. He stood over me. Kicked my ribs. I spose he reckoned I was dead. I reckon I was too for a while. Then at dawn I rode back here. That was last night. Now, please, Sergeant, some water.’

  King Edward made a fire. At the fire they ate dried beef and stale bread. The mercenary drank whisky from his own supply. Nixon thought about bringing him in for the killing of those scalpers, even protected by the commissioner as he was. But when he saw the blood leaking ever more freely from the wound in the Scotsman’s shoulder then he did not worry. He thought more about the condition of the man’s two horses. And which, the mercenary’s or the patrol’s, looked freshest and were most likely to stay good on a ride into the ranges. He spoke to the mercenary.

  ‘You got another bottle?’

  ‘Aye. In the saddlebag.’

  They rose late and the mercenary was dead. They left him and his mate against a rock with their saddles in front of them. Nixon took one horse and let two others loose on the plain.

  Tom Lawton rode past the bodies of the men who said they would kill Jim Kenniff.

  King Edward looked over his shoulder. Once. Then again.

  ‘What is it, lad?’

  ‘Someone’s followin us.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  King Edward shrugged.

  The ground was wet. Nothing would raise dust here. He looked back and saw nothing. But they rode a mile further and stood their horses.

  A rider came towards the patrol across the plain. The patrol took cover in a stand of willows. Still the rider came.

  At three hundred yards Nixon saw the roan mare and then the shape of the rider’s face. He spoke to his men.

  ‘Ready your arms.’

  The rider met the patrol. The white men of the patrol with guns cocked and levelled at the rider’s head, the black boy with a hunting knife raised.

  ‘I want to talk to you, Sergeant.’

  ‘What will we talk about?’

  ‘I can do something for you.’

  ‘I can’t do anything for you, but maybe suggest you ride home and get as drunk as you can on the money you’ve stolen before the day comes there’s a warrant on you, which is what you’ll probably do anyway.’

  ‘Truly, I can help you.’

  ‘The reason I didn’t shoot you off your horse is that for once you are not riding with men I have a warrant to arrest.’

  ‘The same reason I didn’t shoot you off yours. But I can do something for you.’

  ‘Why should I not cuff you, Tom?’

  ‘Because I will take you to them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For a pardon.’

  ‘And if there is no pardon?’

  ‘Then arrest me. I can’t ride back now. I’ve seen the posters everywhere. I’m sick of ridin toward my death.’

  The Skillington boy spat.

  ‘I don’t trust him, Sarge. He could just as easy be leadin us into a ravine to be picked off.’

  But with the fire and rain the trail had gone cold.

  ‘Do you know what Jim Kenniff is?’ said Tom.

  ‘We know alright,’ said the Skillington boy.

  ‘Do you know how much pursuing and threatening with posters at every railway station and post office in the country he will take before nothing on earth will frighten him? I’ve seen it in his eyes. He’s near to going to war against the law of this country, Sergeant. I don’t want that, for many reasons of my own. So let me take you to him.’

  The Skillington boy spoke.

  ‘I don’t trust you, Tom Lawton.’

  Tom nodded. He took a twist of tobacco from his wallet and bit off the end. ‘You don’t trust me. I will tell you the truth. I know where Jim Kenniff is. I will take you to him. And like you say, that may well be to take you to your death. More than that I cannot promise or say. But I have not been sent by them.’ He looked away at the silvering sky. ‘And I know all that he’s done. I’m the only one.’

  ‘There’s sheltering rocks a half-mile from here,’ said Nixon. ‘We ride to there and camp.’

  Tom nodded.

  ‘But there is one thing, Sergeant. One thing you must promise me.’

  ‘I owe you nothing.’

  ‘Even so. You must promise me that if you catch them up, you’ll shoot them dead. I’ve seen the thing this government calls justice. Too many times and too near. You promise me you won’t take them in. You’ll kill them like a man.’

  Each man fixed the other’s eyes.

  They rode to the rocks and unsaddled their horses.

  Nixon brought Tom to one side of the fire and King Edward and the Skillington boy watched them talk from the other. The wind and the flushing fire meant they could not hear all that was spoken. They saw Tom Lawton speaking and Nixon nodding in answer.

  The wind dropped and Nixon asked where the gang was headed.

  ‘Water always runs home.’

  ‘I guessed that much.’

  Tom shook his head.

  ‘I don’t just mean the ranges. Knowin that won’t help you. I’m talkin about where they hide. The top end of that starvation block the government took away from their father. High and difficult to reach. You have to ride through the gorge, exposed all the way, then out through a hidden pass to reach it. Up there are caves and galleries. And rock pools and springs that keep water for months after rain. When we– When they’re up there they see everything that comes in and there is nothing at their backs but high sheltering stone. When they have to disappear they go there.’

  Nixon nodded. Tom spoke on,

  ‘And on the way to there are the Boyces and other old families who set ringers and children up bridle paths on ponies to rendezvous points to warn them if the police get close. Then they make sure their people tell the police they’ve sighted them, yesterday or the day before, scattered about, but definitely they’ve been sighting them. And they make the lies consistent in one direction or another. And the lies lead the police away.

  ‘They’re running now,’ Tom said, ‘Not hiding their tracks, because Jim is too sick and they see posters everywhere they go and they are worried you are close. But I can tell you you are not so close as they fear, and if you want to catch them you’ll have to ride harder after my direction than you have so far. Once they make it through Arcadia Valley and up into the gorge they are safe. They can ride up a defile so narrow that only one horse can pass at a time, and one or two of them can squat up there in the stone and hold off every soldier and policeman in the country so long as they have shells and water. Then the others can escape and you won’t hear of them again.’

  Nixon looked across the fire at King Edward and the Skillington boy.

  ‘You hear that, lad?’

  ‘Some of it.’

  Nixon left to take rabbit meat from his saddlebag.

  Tom came nearer the fire.

  He looked at King Edward, the stony face and red eyes, watching the fringe of dark beyond the fire. The Skillington boy sat with his back against a rock staring into the flames. Tom smiled at King Edward. King Edward did not smile back.

  ‘You talk English?’

  No answer.

  ‘He does,’ said the
Skillington boy. ‘He’s just ignorant.’

  Tom Lawton nodded and looked back at King Edward.

  ‘What do you see out there, boy?’

  The Skillington boy’s back stiffened.

  ‘Where?’

  Tom smiled. To the black boy,

  ‘Out there in the dark.’

  The Skillington boy was squinting into the shadows. King Edward breathed deep.

  ‘I see devils.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Many kinds.’

  The Skillington boy stopped squinting at the dark and clicked his tongue and scowled.

  ‘You fuckin Stone Age bat. What horseshit.’

  Edward stared at the Skillington boy unblinking.

  Tom nodded at King Edward.

  ‘How do you go with him?’

  ‘Well enough.’

  ‘Do you know his people?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So do I. By his eyes and his hair and by the marks on his ribs.’

  The black boy sat shirtless at the fire now with only his suspenders over his shoulders.

  ‘I wouldn’t tease him like you do if I were you,’ Tom said. ‘See his shirt sitting on the ground next to his boots? They make him uncomfortable. Like all our regulations.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Ever wonder what stops him cuttin your clever head off when you tease him?’

  The Skillington boy swallowed and was silent.

  Tom nodded.

  ‘Neither do I.’

  He looked back at King Edward’s red eyes that were staring into the fire.

  Nixon stood behind them now with the rabbit meat.

  ‘He’s a good lad. I’m turning his natural instincts to a trade. And teaching him the law.’

  Tom dragged a hot coal from the edge of the fire with his boot and lit a cigarette. ‘Good for you, Sergeant Nixon.’ He drew on the cigarette and passed it to King Edward. ‘And what do you want, boy?’

  Nixon looked now at the boy and wondered that he had never thought to ask.

  King Edward looked up at Tom, then at Nixon.

  ‘To be free.’

  They rode into light timber. Then along a meander belt where the wind channelled the river. They caught a yellowbelly in a shallow riffle. Nixon ordered a fire to roast the fish.