by Rachel Leary
Bridget took a step. The shock was visible in the woman’s face. She craned her neck forward. ‘Bridget? Bridget Crack? Is that you?’
The girl had come running out of the house with a gun, stood next to Anne holding it.
‘Dear God, what has happened to you? My God, you’re skin and bone, look at you. What…what are you doing here?’
Bridget’s voice seemed to have escaped.
‘What are you doing? Are you in trouble? I could’ve shot you.’ Anne was staring at her, waiting for an answer. ‘Where’d you come from?’
Bridget shook her head.
‘What happened to you?’ She was looking at Bridget’s dress. ‘Did you know I were here? How’d you find me?’
She didn’t speak and Anne watched her, waiting.
Bridget couldn’t look at her anymore, focused on the ground near Anne’s feet.
Anne looked over her shoulder at the cottage. ‘Come on. Come in then.’
...
The room was crowded and warm, a fire blazing in the fireplace at one end. When they entered, the little boy she had seen before was trying to wrestle a doll out of the girl’s hand while an older girl sat in a chair near the fire sewing. Now all three of them were staring at her. ‘Stop staring, all of you,’ Anne said, then turned to Bridget. ‘Sit down.’
The table she sat at was covered with things: a loaf of bread that Bridget had to stop herself from reaching out for, a bowl of salt, a tin pot, a half-sewn dress with pins along the bottom, dirty plates, a cup, a flask, and on top of the dress a dried snakeskin. Anne reached over her for the loaf of bread, cut a few pieces and put two in front of Bridget. ‘Here. Eat.’
The older girl had resumed her sewing but was sneaking glances, while the younger two children still stood near the table staring.
Anne turned around. ‘Outside.’
They didn’t move.
‘Now. Outside.’
They went out.
‘Frances, take your sewing into the other room.’
The girl got up, collected her sewing things from the floor.
‘They’ll be the death of me, I swear. The trouble is, he lets them do whatever they like. Thinks because their mother died they should be able to do what they want. That’s all very well, but he’s not the one with them all day, is he?’
She went to the door, yelled out, ‘Elizabeth, take that bucket and fill it up! Bring it in here!’
A few minutes later the girl came in, slopping water on the floor, went out again. Anne tipped some of it into a pot hanging over the fire. ‘He was working at the same place as me, got his Ticket. I knew them both and then she died. She wasn’t really a friend; I knew her is all. Anyway, a few months later he left and the next time I saw him he had this place and he asked me to marry him. I got assigned to him so now he’s my master. And now I’ve got these bloody children to look after and no doubt soon I’ll have more. At least they’ll be mine though; maybe that way I won’t think about killing them so often.’ She laughed.
Anne sat in the chair at the end of the table. Bridget could feel her gaze on the side of her face. ‘So. Are you going to tell me?’
Bridget shrugged. ‘Nothing to tell.’
‘I find you snooping around in my shed looking half starved, filthy as a dog rolled in shit and you say there’s nothing to tell. Rubbish.’
‘I need somewhere to go for a while.’
‘What happened? Did you leave your master’s? Did something happen? You’ve been in the bush.’
Bridget looked up at her. ‘How do you know that?’
Anne laughed. ‘Well you don’t look like you’ve been sleeping in silk sheets, put it that way.’
‘The place I got sent up-country—there was no missus there.’
‘And you left?’
‘I was going to Hobart Town.’ Bridget stood up, walked over to the fire. ‘I got lost. It wasn’t my fault.’
‘You just have to turn yourself in. They’ll charge you with absconding, send you to the Factory for a while and then put you back out with a new master.’
Bridget was shaking her head. ‘I can’t.’
‘Why not? I saw Mary-Ann Daly a while ago, she left her master’s place for a week, went off with some fella she found at the public house and all they did when they found her was give her a telling-off and sent her back to her master. Then she left again and the same thing happened. I mean, you remember Mary-Ann, she—’
‘A man got killed.’
‘What man?’
‘I was there. I got lost and they found me, some bushrangers; I was with them, and a man got shot.’
‘You were with bushrangers?’ Anne stared at her. ‘You took up with bushrangers?’ She started to laugh.
‘I didn’t take up with them.’
Anne stopped laughing. ‘What, they nabbed you?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what happened.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know what happened?’
Bridget felt something fierce grip her and she swung around. ‘I don’t know. That’s what I said. I don’t know, alright.’
Anne leaned back in the chair. ‘Alright. Alright.’
...
She must have fallen asleep because it was suddenly almost dark. Anne was at the table lighting a candle. She took Bridget around a partition to where there was a tub of water on the floor, held her hand out for the filthy dress, gave Bridget another one to put on. Bridget had just put the clean dress on and come back around the partition when outside a dog barked and then the door opened and a man walked in. He looked at Bridget while he took his hat off.
The boy rushed up to him. ‘Guess what, Papa?’
‘What?’
‘I killed a snake.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yeah, and it was a vicious one too. Here’s the skin. Look!’
‘This’s Bridget,’ Anne said. ‘We were in the gaol together.’
The boy had taken the skin off the table and was holding it up in front of his father, who ignored him, still looking at Bridget. ‘Oh yeah. And what’s she doing here?’
‘She’s staying a few nights.’
‘What are we running, a boarding house or something?’
‘What do you think, Papa?’ the boy said.
Bridget stood up. ‘I’ll go.’
‘Sit down,’ Anne said. She turned to the older girl. ‘Frances, take Bridget up to the hut. Get the lamp and the fur blanket.’
Frances stood where she was, looking at her father, while Anne stared him down.
‘Go on then, take her,’ he said. ‘I don’t bloody care.’
As Bridget and Frances walked out the door she heard the boy again: ‘It’s a good one, Papa, isn’t it?’
She followed the girl across the creek and up the slope to the dark shape of the hut among the trees. The girl pushed the door open and the lamp lit up the inside of the empty hut that Bridget had come across earlier that morning. Frances put the lamp on the barrel. ‘There was a man here a while ago, our servant, but he’s gone now.’
Bridget nodded. Anne had lit the end of a thick stick in the fire and given it to Bridget to bring up here. It was smoking now and she bent over and put it on the ground near the fireplace.
‘Are you really a bushranger?’
Bridget turned around and the girl looked down at the ground.
‘I heard you talking to Anne—to Mother.’
‘No. And don’t you go saying that to no one.’
The girl nodded, picked up the lamp and, without looking up or saying anything else, she left, the light in her hand swaying as she went down through the trees.
...
In the morning Anne brought meat, milk and bread to the hut. ‘You have to give yourself in.’
‘Shouldn’t of told him my name.’
Anne stood above her, watching her while she ate, hands on her hips. ‘Worst they’ll do is reassign you for life. And what does that matter? None of us are going back
anyway.’
‘Or they’ll hang me.’
‘They won’t hang you, Bridget. What have you done? You didn’t do anything.’
Bridget chewed the meat, washed it down with milk.
‘Well, where are you going to go?’
‘England.’
Anne didn’t say anything but Bridget sensed her watching. Then she said she had to go, would be back later.
...
In the afternoon Bridget went down to the cottage, asked if there was a piece of paper. There wasn’t but she gave some money to Frances, who went down to the town to get her a piece.
im not at amy jenkins any more she makes caps for cunstables is there any news i need some news
She wrote Anne’s name and that she was in Launceston.
...
Bridget stood near the fireplace in the hut. Someone had engraved the initials M.L. into one of the rocks above the fireplace. Who was M.L.? Why did they put that there? Michael Lockley. Michael Landgridge. Micky Long.
She stood looking at the greying wood of the door, walked over and pushed the bolt across. She stood with one hand still on the bolt, her head against the rough wood of the door. Then she sat down on the mattress, went back through it all again, everything that had happened to get her here, where she was now. Tried to think. She didn’t know what, but something. She wrapped her arms around her body.
...
Anne came to the hut, stood inside the door, her arms crossed. ‘There’s a Wanted sign for you in the town.’
Bridget didn’t look up at her. Didn’t answer.
‘What are you going to do?’
Bridget said nothing.
‘I can’t keep you here forever.’
When Bridget still didn’t speak Anne turned around and went out, left the door open behind her.
...
She would get a letter soon, she told her, would get news about the ship to England. Anne was quiet. Bridget pressed money into Anne’s hand. ‘I’ll hear soon. Soon.’ During the days she’d been helping Anne at the cottage. At night she was restless in the hut. ‘Stay up at the hut,’ Anne said now, ‘don’t come down here.’
...
B.C. She engraved it into one of the rocks. There was nothing else to do.
...
Anne brought the note to the hut. ‘Is this what you’re waiting for?’
i told you i will see what i can do
D.R.
It was still early but the main street was alive with action. People walked and ran and rode, came in and out of buildings, some of them glancing at Bridget as they passed, others intent on their morning business. A lady in a salmon dress walked by, the morning sun shining on her hair.
Bridget stopped a woman who dragged a snotty child along behind her, asked where she would find the constable. The woman pointed to a brick building down the street on the other side.
The building was red brick, smaller than the buildings on either side of it, the door timber. There was nothing remarkable about the front of it except for the iron bars over the windows. When the door opened she turned to face the road, her back to the building and the two men who came out.
‘Yeah, well, I don’t know, he had his work cut out for him if you ask me,’ one of the men said as he passed behind her.
The other one laughed. ‘I s’pose so.’ She watched them walk down the road then stop when a boy ran up to the shorter of the two. ‘Constable Foster, sir, someone’s took our pig. Ma says she knows who it were, it were that bastard Gilroy, and she says can you go and get him.’
The man said something to the boy that she couldn’t hear and then the two men kept walking and the boy ran off down the road.
Bridget stood there while the sun warmed the bricks and warmed her back and people’s voices floated behind her. She looked back at the building the two men had come out of, then she turned away, joined the river of life that was the road.
The two-storey stone house was built close to the road. Around the back there were outbuildings, a stable and a fenced garden, a small hut facing the garden. The door to the hut was half open, the yard between it and the house empty except for some chickens scratching around. She crossed the yard to the hut and stood behind it. A man came from down the side of the main house walking straight towards where she stood. She pushed herself against the back of the hut, heard his footsteps coming closer. The hut door scraped open. The timber wall was thin and she could hear him inside. Something dropped, a dull thud, and the man swore.
The door opened again and his footsteps retreated. She waited a few minutes and then moved along the side of the hut, peered around at the main house. Seeing no one, she slipped in the hut door.
There was a small table up one end close to the fire, a good half a loaf of bread sitting on it. She pulled a hunk off the loaf. There was a tinderbox on the table, a blanket thrown across a hammock in the corner of the hut. On the floor near the fire was a leather knapsack, a powder horn lying next to it. She picked up the knapsack and shoved the bread and the tinderbox into it, grabbed the powder horn and the blanket from the hammock and was about to leave when she saw the man coming back. She froze where she was and then moved quickly into the corner behind the door. There was another sound, the crack of a whip. It sounded like a bullock cart and it must have pulled up close to the back of the hut because she could hear the voices clearly.
‘I left Healy out there. He’ll walk back in later on. Let the bullock rest for a while. Tomorrow morning you can take it into Hobart Town. Pick up Rowley’s order while you’re there, drop it in on the way back.’
‘Yes, sir. Mr Dwyer said he should have that harness ready for you by the twelfth; should I stay on and get that while I’m there, sir?’
‘Alright, I suppose so, yes. Before you go in the morning, come to the house.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Oh, and Carson…’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Oh, never mind. I’ll talk to you later.’
The whip cracked again and she heard the wheels of the bullock cart.
She pushed herself hard against the wall now.
The man walked to the hut door. She could see him through the crack, only inches away. He stopped, looked towards the house. Then he turned and walked back that way.
She breathed now, waited another minute, came out from behind the door. Outside there was no sign of him. She ran into the trees beyond the garden.
...
In the hills behind the house she sat down and emptied out the knapsack. In the bottom of it there was a small canister of gunpowder and an empty water bladder. The tinderbox was wood, smaller than the one Matt had carried, but inside was the flint, steel and a bit of straw. She hit the flint against the steel. Nothing. She tried again and again and eventually produced a spark. She collected dry leaves, twigs and branches and this time let the spark fall into the dry straw that lit a leaf, the leaf lighting a stick. Soon there was smoke and she squatted by her fire adding stick after stick. She went to slept that night by the fire with the blanket over her, woke to its ashes and ate some bread.
She had just tied the blanket to the top of the knapsack when she looked up to see someone coming through the trees about fifty yards from where she sat. She snatched the tinderbox and the knapsack, got to her feet.
‘Hey, stop! Stop there.’
Halfway down the slope she slipped and turned to see two figures coming down the hill behind her.
She was up again, branches whipping her face as she ran down into a gully and then uphill. She climbed, grabbed branches and pulled herself up, going deeper into the hill’s scrub. They were further behind her now, but still coming. Up ahead there was a rock like a huge tooth jutting out of the ground. She stood behind it, pushed herself against it.
Bridget stood completely still, no movement in her body at all except the rise and fall of her chest. She heard the crunch of a boot and then the voice, close.
‘She can’t be far away.’
>
The sound of someone crashing through scrub and then another voice. ‘Fancy getting robbed by a woman.’
‘I don’t care who it was. I want my stuff.’
For a moment they were silent. Then: ‘We’ll go back down. You can take the cart to Rawlings’, get word to Oatlands.’
She stood there until long after they were gone.
...
There were four of them. Sawyers. They were working in a clearing about a hundred yards from the river. Two of them were sawing in a pit and another two were carrying planks between the pit and a timber stack underneath a tree. A couple of bullocks dozed near the pit and a black dog lay to one side of them. Barely visible, hidden as it was among the trees between the clearing and the river, was a bark hut.
The sound of a plank being dropped onto the pile rang out through the clearing and was loud even where she stood. It hit the pile and bounced off and one of the men grabbed his foot. ‘For God’s sake.’ He straightened. ‘Told you not to throw the fucking thing. Nearly broke my bloody foot.’ He swore again and the other one said something and then they both lifted the plank up off the ground. ‘Put it this time, don’t chuck it.’
One of the men appeared out of the pit. ‘Carter being too rough with ya, Dolly?’
There was the sound of wood hitting wood again, not as loud this time. The man who’d hurt his foot turned. ‘End up like bloody Peterson, laid up, and you blokes’ll be another man short. Then see how bloody funny it’d be.’
‘I didn’t even chuck it, it just fell.’
‘Bullshit ya didn’t.’
They walked back to the pit.
As she watched another man appeared from out of the trees in front of the hut. He walked with a limp, a stick to support himself. He came up the middle of the clearing and when he arrived at the pit two of them stopped work and talked to him and the dog got up and went over to him and stood there wagging its tail. One of the men pointed towards the river and the crippled man looked in that direction and then they talked a while longer. When the two men went back to work he limped back to the hut where he sat on a log smoking.
Bridget stood watching and, as she did, the sun that had been out for most of the day sank down behind the hills. The bush drained of colour and cold rose from the damp ground. She made her way back to the river, the men’s voices fading into the darkening afternoon.
