by Rachel Leary
She had known what the coins were, but they needed food. She said she’d found them, only later gave them Potts’s name. In the gaol she waited to see if someone was going to come, if Timmy would go to the constable, to the gaol, to tell them he’d given her the coins. No one had come.
...
‘Van Demon’s Land.’ The name had sounded strange to her ears.
...
The days trembled then slipped into darkness. In the afternoon she heard a dog bark in the distance. One of the dogs Sully had left with her—Noah, his favourite—started hollering, a look of excitement and knowing on his face. Bridget stood up from the fire, fought the urge to run to the door.
Light of spring. Bright springtime angel. The sweetest voice. Now the river was fast. It spoke as though it had a sermon to deliver, a desperate message, but no time to deliver it. The river in its drunken springtime plight.
Sully took her across the drier slopes to collect seeds and berries, vicious red, that they ate back at the hut.
...
It was a clear and cold morning and Bridget was fumbling through the dark to open the door. Sully was usually up before her. She usually woke to him moving around the hut, the scrape of the door opening. She left him to sleep, went down to the river. When she came back up he still hadn’t moved. Bridget went over to him. He was faced towards the dead fire, the fur blanket pulled up close to his face.
‘Sully.’
Nothing.
‘Sully?’ She touched his arm then. Drew it back, fast and sharp. She took a step back. Noah came in and went over to Sully, whined and wagged his tail then sat down against him.
‘Sully?’ she said, quietly now.
...
Bridget stood over him, pulled on the arm furthest away from her and rolled him over. Then she pulled the fur up over his head.
Outside a light wind stroked the hut. She sat down next to him. Noah, excited by the strange snuffling noises, the sounds of human crying, came over and tried to lick her face. She pushed him off and he lay down on the other side of Sully.
...
In the morning she walked along the faint track that went to Beadle’s. Didn’t get far before she came back again. Sully didn’t like Beadle; wouldn’t want him here.
She took the spade from where it leaned against the wood stack, went down to the river, all the dogs following her.
On the little island she went into the bush and stopped in what seemed like the middle between two sassafras trees. The spade hit the ground and hardly penetrated, sent a jolt up her arm and into her body. She swore and threw the spade hard. She stood there, then went and got the spade, smacked it back into the unyielding ground.
...
Bridget held the needle in the fire, her hand shaking. The left sleeve of her shirt was rolled up to the elbow, the soft skin of the inside of her arm exposed. She dipped the needle into the gunpowder, pushed the dark tip of it into her skin until a tiny drop of blood appeared. Noah was whimpering by the door. She got up, let him out. The fire was lighting the shape that was Sully near his chair where she had moved him and piled skins over him.
She put the needle back in the fire, dipped it into the gunpowder. There were a lot of dots now, red around the steel-grey of the gunpowder, the dots joining up to form an arc. She sat pricking the dots into her arm long into the night, then she lay down and pulled two fur blankets over her head.
...
The sun was twinkling on the slow water upstream but where she stood opposite the island, the shallow river was rough and loud with rapids. She stood looking over at the island and then around at the trees. Behind her was a tree with a speckled trunk, wide dark green leaves. Bridget wrapped the rope around it a few times and tied it. She took the other end with her, picked her way slowly across the river, the water above her knees, the bottom covered with rocks. On the other side she attached the rope to another tree, came back over, one hand on the rope to steady herself against the rush and pull of the river.
...
She dragged him to the door. Noah watched and barked. She was a long time dragging him down there. Leaves gathered in his hair, he bumped over rocks. There was nothing else she could do.
...
He was lying in the leaves next to the river opposite the island. She took off his boots, left them on the bank. In the river she struggled to stay upright and hold on to the top half of him. His legs headed downstream. She fell, felt herself getting swept away, grabbed the rope, her head just above the water. She leaned out into the current, grabbed Sully’s arm with her free hand, the other one holding the rope. Eventually she brought the body in tight against her, rested there in the middle of the river and then started again.
She nearly lost him again near the bank, grabbed him under the arms and dragged him onto the firm ground of the island. She rested a while then dragged him through the scrub to the place where she had pounded at the ground. It was more an area of disturbed moss and exposed roots than a hole, but she had dug there until sunset to make it. She lay him down on it then went back up to the hut, came back down with a crude cross made from two bits of wood cut and tied together with twine. She collected rocks and built them around the cross.
...
Sully’s armchair. Sully’s hammock, barrels and sacks and furs, Sully’s guns and powder horn. Noah sat in the doorway watching her, wagged his tail.
She lay awake for a long time listening to the splutter of the night. There was salted meat—that would last a while. With the dogs she could get more. There was about a quarter of a sack of flour, a few handfuls of sugar. Not much left of one candle.
There was a growl outside. She had brought all of the dogs into the hut with her. They woke up now, barked. The dogs sat looking at the door and then lay back down. She threw another log onto the fire. The flames lifted and the shadow of her and the dogs grew large on the hut wall.
...
Sky raw ripping blue, a light falling of snow. The swelling went from the skin of her inner arm, the rawness and pinkness faded so that all that was left was the colour of the gunpowder. In the firelight she could see it: inch-long scythe shape, the outline filled. A dark grey new moon.
...
Bridget followed the track all day, Noah and Job with her, the other three dogs locked in the hut. It was dusk when she came to the frayed rope slung over the river, tied between trees on either side, the bottom of the rope brushing the water. A track led up the bank into the bush. She walked up and stood in the trees at the edge of the clearing. Close to where she was standing on the track were pieces of a broken water cask, the timber rotting into the soil next to a bottlebrush tree.
Smoke came from the hut’s chimney. After a while a figure came from around the side of the hut. Beadle. She watched him go inside the hut, take the dogs with him.
...
Beadle looked at the tin of nails, knife and gun she’d put on the table. It wasn’t enough for the supplies she wanted, he said. She said he could have one of the dogs. She knew that hunting dogs were worth a lot. The men had talked about it. Sam had found a puppy in a trap on their way to Norfolk Plains, the trap having cut its leg all the way through to the bone. Little brown puppy. It was lying there with its eyes half closed, whimpering. Henry said to shoot it but Sam had opened the trap and picked it up. Matt said it was probably wild, that there were packs of wild dogs around—hunting dogs that had got away and bred. ‘Doesn’t look wild,’ Sam said. When he’d freed it, it had hardly moved. He wrapped it up in a fur and carried it all day. He tried to get it to take water from the creek off his fingers, to eat some meat, but it wouldn’t. Henry laughed at him carrying it. ‘Sell it,’ Sam said, ‘get a good price for it.’ That night, after Henry and Matt were asleep, Sam sat up by the fire with the puppy. It was shaking. He had said he was going to find a cow in the morning, get some milk for it. Bridget was awake, saw him put his finger down to it, the puppy lick his finger. She saw it when it died there in his arms. In the light from
the fire she saw the film of moisture come over Sam’s eyes. In the morning he’d buried it, Henry shaking his head. That day Sam was quiet. But that wasn’t new; Sam was mostly quiet.
‘Not yours to sell,’ Beadle said.
‘They are now.’
‘Not going to Norfolk Plains,’ he said. Things he had more of a need for than dogs, he said, his gaze sliding over her body.
He kept the gun, gave her a sack with not more than a few handfuls of flour in it.
When she left he stood out the front of the hut and watched her go.
...
She ran out of wood. She cut more but it was too wet too burn. She went down the valley looking for drier wood, made her way back to the hut exhausted, scratched and muddy. The wood was wrapped in hessian slung across her back. She hoisted it higher and plodded on through the mud.
Finally, she could see the hut. She stopped.
Something wasn’t right. Her stomach tightened and the back of her neck prickled. She put the wood down and pulled the gun out of Sully’s belt she wore, held it firmly in her hand. It still felt strange. Matt’s gun had looked like an extension of his arm. He handled it with familiarity, but she still felt almost as awkward with this gun now as she had the first time she’d picked it up.
She walked slowly towards the hut, and when she was close stopped behind a tree and listened. Hiss of wind, run of the river, caw of a crow. Her breath had become short and sharp and her heart knocked its distress against her chest. Noah and the other dogs were around her; they weren’t barking or growling, only appeared curious about what she was doing, but still the uneasy feeling in her stomach remained.
She walked to the hut with the gun held out in front of her, unlatched the door and pushed it open. She stood in the doorway pointing the gun into the semi-darkness. Nothing: the fireplace at one end, everything around it just as she had left it. She went outside and looked behind the hut, checked the bushes all around.
This had happened a few days before when she had come back from the river. She had come up the bank and had that same feeling: that someone was there, or had been there.
On moonlit nights, when she went outside, rocks and stumps became animals and shadows morphed into people. Now she stood looking up at the top of the mountain and then down the other way towards the valley, towards lower land where the wind blew warmer. Then she went back down the hill to get the wood.
...
She lay awake listening to the hiss and growl of possums, looked around now at the dark shapes of the dogs on the floor. The fire was almost out. There was not much cut wood left again. There was only a stub of a candle. No flour, no tobacco, no sugar. She had eaten all the potatoes that had been left in the garden.
Early in the morning she took the dogs and shut the hut door behind her.
...
Spring had brought out the yellow flowers on the wattle trees that crowded the slopes of the lower valleys. The nights were less freezing and some days a warm breeze blew across the clearing. Bridget lay awake listening to the raspy draw of Jack Beadle’s breath.
...
She woke to crisp air, scratched at her scalp. She sat up and Noah stirred. Over in the hammock Beadle didn’t move. Outside a dog barked and Beadle sat up suddenly. Noah had started up a racket and Beadle grabbed his gun, pulled trousers on as he made his way towards the door.
‘Primrose!’
The voice was outside the door. Bridget knew it. Knew it immediately.
She saw the door open, felt the cold come in, saw Matt standing there in the doorway, saw him glance at her then look straight at Beadle, who started to say something. The shot sent Beadle backwards. He lay half on the table, a gaping pulpy mess where his chest had been.
...
Matt pushed her hard. He pulled her up, pushed her along in front of him again.
Bridget faced him and he stood glaring at her. Back at the hut he’d looked at her belly, had seen there was no fullness to it. ‘Where is it?’ he said now.
She shook her head. ‘Gone.’
He stood there glowering and she looked straight at him. ‘It’s gone.’
Sam was a few yards away down the slope now, arms by his side. He said nothing but his gaze was calm and even and he had a way of making Matt feel ashamed just by the way he was.
Matt walked past them into the scrub.
Marshall walked with Mr Blessington over the field. ‘Broad daylight,’ Blessington said. ‘We were inside eating lunch when Riley, the servant, came running in and said there were natives here. They were standing over there.’ Blessington pointed to a place where a flock of sheep grazed in front of a stand of trees. ‘Ten or so of them. A couple of them with burning sticks. I fired a shot into the trees there. They just stood there, so I fired again. They went then, thankfully. But they could still be around here.’ He looked around at the clumps of trees that skirted the field.
‘You know they burned all of Carlow’s hay a few months ago,’ he said as they turned to walk back to the house. ‘I never go anywhere without this now.’ Raising his gun. ‘And I’m very glad you and the other soldiers are here. I know you’re here for the bushrangers, but, well, with all this business—’ he nodded at the field—‘I know Cathy is pleased you are here, and I must say, I am too.’
...
The governor had sent Marshall out here to Mr Blessington’s large land grant on the Macquarie River. He had Lieutenant Pullen with him and three privates. Colonel Gower had taken another group to a property near York Plains. Arthur was sending parties of soldiers out to be stationed on settlers’ properties so that if the bushrangers struck, they would be there, ready. Previously it had generally taken up to a day for a settler to reach a constable to report a robbery, and then another day at least for the constable to gather men and reach the property, by which time the bushrangers were long gone, most likely on their way back to the mountains. And many of the constables were also less than enthusiastic.
So far, however, from what Marshall has heard, most of the soldiers had spent the days sitting around drinking and flirting with the settlers’ daughters. There had been no sign of Sheedy at any of the properties.
‘Someone mentioned that the woman with them was your servant at some time,’ Blessington said as they crossed the field and neared the house.
‘Yes. That’s true.’
‘Hmph. They really are degraded, some of them, aren’t they?’
‘Who are?’
Blessington looked at him. ‘The female convicts.’
‘Oh,’ Marshall said. ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose they are.’
He had been thinking: the last time the Sheedy gang had been sighted there had reportedly been no woman with them.
‘Last time I was in Hobart Town I saw a couple of them fighting in the street. One was pulling the other’s hair, and then the other one punched her. With her fist, mind you. Fair in the face. And the swearing and cursing that was coming from them—it was really quite something,’ Blessington said, laughing.
‘Hm,’ Marshall said, forced a grin.
Giggling came from the lawn. Blessington’s daughter, Louisa. Pullen had strung a rope between two trees, was trying to walk across it. He had just fallen off.
‘Daddy,’ she called, ‘Lieutenant Pullen is going to leave the army and join the circus!’
Blessington turned to Marshall, raised his eyebrows.
All the talk was of China. They were going to the coast. Had a boat organised, Matt boasted, drunk. He picked up the bottle, swigged. His beard had grown back. He was ugly. Ugly and there was something wrong with him—worse than before. It was as though whatever faint stitching had held him together had finally come apart.
The next day when he hit her she walked off into the scrub but he came after her, scruffed her. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ He said she should be more grateful, said again that he’d saved her; that she owed him, that she’d be dead without him. Then he said that in China he’d get her whatever
she wanted, that he’d get her whatever she wanted in China.
...
‘You should come. Come to China, Bridge. It’ll be better when we’re there,’ Sam said. He looked at Matt, who was sitting on a rock sharpening his knife. ‘He’ll be better. He’ll be alright once we’re there.’
...
Henry spoke over his shoulder. ‘This is part of Cantwell’s property. Owns just about half the flaming colony. His shepherd’s a bloke called Peter Murray. Met him a couple of times.’
They were coming up to the hut when Henry stopped. Matt stopped behind him. On the ground ahead of them a man lay face down, a spear sticking out of the middle of his back and one out of the side of his thigh.
‘Aw,’ Henry said. ‘He don’t look too well.’
Matt bent over the man. ‘Hasn’t been well for a while.’
His clothes were ripped at the bottom of his ribcage and the flesh there ruined where something had been feeding on him.
Henry looked around, drew his gun and went up to the hut door. He pushed it open then came back out. ‘Nothing left here.’
Matt walked up to the hut, looked inside. ‘We keep going.’
...
They camped that night by a slow-moving creek, the water tea-coloured, doilies of foam floating on its surface.
Henry was quieter than usual. There was another man with them—Pascoe. They had picked him up; he was taking them to the coast, Matt said. Pascoe was on edge, wanted to camp somewhere else. ‘They’ll get us. Come get us in the night while we’re sleeping. I tell ya, they will, they’ll get us.’
‘If they’re gunna get us, they’ll get us anywhere. Here, there…’ Henry stretched out his arm, indicating the land all around. ‘Anywhere.’
‘Reckon we should take it in turns to watch out.’
Matt chucked wood on the fire, a splash of sparks. ‘You so worried about them, you watch.’
