by Rachel Leary
...
She spent the night by the river without a fire and in the morning returned to the clearing. There was a rise at the top end of the clearing from where she had a decent view and it was far enough away that the dog wouldn’t hear or smell her—although there was no sign of the dog yet today. The bullocks stood yoked to a cart that was loaded with timber. Their heads were down and they were dozing as though they might have been standing there for some time. Down in the forest, smoke bled out of the hut’s chimney up into the canopy. She shifted her weight, looked into the bush behind her.
She had been standing there for a long time before three of the men came out of the hut and walked up to the bullocks. They were talking, but it was too far away to make out what they were saying. One of them fiddled with the bullocks’ harness and then another man came from the hut and walked up to join the others at the bullocks. He and another man got up on the seat and the other two sat on the timber on the back of the cart. They drove the bullocks out of the clearing and into the forest.
She stayed there on the rise a while and then came down and crossed the track where they had gone. It led through the forest to the river. Close to the hut she stood by a gum. There was a lock hanging from the hut door but it was not done up. There was still smoke coming from the chimney.
There was a noise from the hut—the door being unbolted from the inside—and then the limping man she had seen yesterday came out, the dog next to him. The hut door was left open. When the man got to the woodpile, Bridget went to the hut door, peered into the darkness. There was no one else inside.
In the night she curled up by a creek among ferns. At dawn there was a rustle behind her. She rolled over to see a wombat disappearing into the thick scrub. Bridget grabbed the gun, got to her feet and fired. The thing uttered an awful sound but kept going. She went after it, got a glimpse of its wide grey back, reloaded the gun and fired again.
She pulled it out from under the bush by its back leg. It was heavy and still alive, spitting and growling, bleeding from its hindquarters that were a mess from the shot. She found a rock, pounded it between the eyes. She hit it again but it wouldn’t die. The damn thing wouldn’t die.
She stood over its bloody carcass, the rock in her hand by her side. It was done. It was dead. She dropped the rock.
She sat by the creek, carved a chunk of flesh off the back end of the animal and sat it on the coals next to her. She waved her hand over the wound where flies were settling, carved off another piece of meat. She carried the thing for a while but it was heavy and flies were following her, settling all over it. She cut another few bits off it and left it.
...
West, Sully had said, out beyond the settlement on the Clyde River. There is a river. One place a person might still be left in peace. Bridget had been travelling south, following the road but staying in the hills to the west of it. She held the gun she had taken from the sawyers close to her side.
...
The sky was all blue and a warm breeze licked the day. The edges of the mammoth craggy mountains behind the hills were clear and certain under the hard sun and birds chattered excitedly, spreading news of a golden morning. She passed a cottage where part of the thatching had come off the roof and a spade with no handle leaned up against the door. She stopped in front of it. A crop of potatoes and cabbages was growing in a patch at one end of the cottage and at the other end a fruit tree. Near where she stood there was a small pine tree and even closer, only a yard ahead of her on the track, was a kangaroo’s foot, the fur damp and muddy, a host of flies sitting on it.
Bridget walked on along the track and into the gum trees and around to the back of the cottage. There was a dog near the back of the building tied to a post and lying on the ground. It heard her and stood up, barked in her direction, pulled against the rope that held it. Bridget stayed near the line of trees waiting. No one came from the cottage. Behind the potato patch there was a rope between two trees, two shirts and a pair of trousers hanging from it. Beyond that a field planted out with corn. The dog was tall and skinny—a hunting dog. She took a few steps towards the potato patch and the dog barked again and she stopped where she was, looked back over the field. The dog had sat down and was now wagging its tail ferociously so that its whole backside wagged. It got up again, jumped, straining on its rope and then it sat down again and wagged and whimpered. A young dog maybe, rusty in colour, a long snout, a mangy ragged-looking thing.
She pulled up three potatoes, ripped the shirts and trousers off the line and cut the line at both ends, quickly coiled it. Then she ran back into the trees. The dog barked again. She stopped. There was still no sign of anyone around the cottage. She dumped the clothes and rope by a tree, walked back to the dog, who started jumping again so high and energetically now that it almost flipped. She stood a yard in front of it. It sat on the ground wagging its tail, its head down as though expecting to be told off. She slowly put her hand out and it sniffed and then licked her hand. She looked around again, cut the rope near the post and the dog ran next to her to the trees.
...
There were five of them, all of them a decent size, grazing on flat grassy land, the trees sparse here, the understorey light. They stood watching the roos and the dog looked up at her as though to ask permission. ‘Not yet.’ She held the hair at the back of his neck. The animals had heard them and were on edge—she wanted to wait for them to settle. One of them, one of the biggest, hopped a couple of yards and a few of the others looked up then returned to their grazing.
‘Alright, go.’ She let him go and he sped out of the bushes and instantly the roos took off, their huge hind legs propelling them up and forward, all of their attention on fleeing. The dog had chosen his target already: the smallest one at the back of the group. The dog’s hind legs gathered up under his body and then made contact with the ground ever so briefly until they were drawn up again. The muscles of his body rippled, his line did not falter, he was gaining on the animal. He almost flew for seconds at a time, nothing of his agile body in contact with the ground. Then he came up next to it, grabbed it around its throat and took it down. The rest of the group continued in their flight as the dog stilled the struggling animal then turned towards the place where Bridget stood, ready to deliver up his work. He was a good hunter. She strode over, patted and praised him, lifted the heavy, bleeding animal off the ground.
...
The creek glinted in the afternoon sun, the water curving smoothly over a submerged log and then spitting and splashing like a party of demons before collecting itself and progressing on downstream in a more mellow fashion. A small bird, its head marked with the same blue as the sky and a tail like a fan, hopped from branch to branch. Flames rose up from the fire’s coals like genies, dancing in the daylight.
Bridget pulled the cooked piece of meat off the stick and ate it, threw another piece to the dog. Bury—his name. He’d needed a name. Bury St Edmunds. The village her sister had moved to when she married. Bridget chucked another piece of meat to the dog and he gulped it down, then sat a yard away watching her eat hers. He was distracted by a fly on his coat that he snapped at and then his brown shiny gaze was back, intent, watching the meat on her stick, monitoring her every move until she threw him another piece.
In the night she lay curled around him, his warmth seeping into her body. His coat was short and rough, burnt orange. In the middle of his chest the hairs met in a swirl and sat up in a tiny crest. He was the shape of most of the island’s hunting dogs, his stomach pulling up into the high hindquarters, the tail long and thin, although even more lean than most. The skin on his head was tight over the bone, the eyes sitting in the skull, brown and perfectly round, the soft lids graced with short eyelashes darker than the colour of his coat. The black snout was wet with moisture and there was crust in the corners of his glassy eyes. She lay against him, the dark close around them. He let out a whimper—he was dreaming, his legs moving, running. He was running in his sleep. She put
her hand on his coat, on the warmth of him.
The cave was part of an outcrop of rock, dry as a scab halfway up the steep slope, trees and scrub growing close all around it, the river fast below it, shallow, the bottom measled with pebbles. Along from the cave was a rock column and balanced on top of it, as though it had been placed there gently for some later use, was an almost-square rock. The cave was deep with a low roof that had a hole in it about twice the size of Bridget’s head. Inside the floor was fine silt that had been undisturbed when she arrived and now was messy with foot and paw prints and tracks from dragging branches.
The fire jumped and sprang and then became nothing but a quiet glow, the occasional flick of flame across the coals. She hacked meat off the carcass that lay on the floor next to her, pushed the meat onto the stick and squatted close to the little fire. Juice dripped onto the singing embers. She sat up in the back of the cave and ate, the gun on the ground next to her. Bury was sitting obediently a yard away from the carcass, staring at it and licking his chops. She sawed more flesh off the animal, chucked him some.
...
The dog sat on the ground next to her wagging his tail and looking up at her from time to time as if to ask was something going to happen now. What are we waiting for? He was torn between wanting to sit there like she had told him to and the desire to get up and run—not for any particular reason, as far as she could tell, but for the sake of running. She dropped her hand onto his head.
She’d been here in the daylight once before, had seen a man come up from the river to the cottage and go inside. Today a line of smoke trailed from the stone cottage’s chimney, but they hadn’t seen anyone. The bullock was there like before, standing in a yard at the back of the house. Beyond the bullock yard was a flock of sheep, and not far from where they grazed a field of corn. On the other side of the cottage from the bullock yard was a garden thick and alive with vegetables.
It was upstream from the cave, not far. She had been here twice now in the night, taken corn and potatoes. Last time it had been a bright moon, but on the way back to the cave her foot had gone down in a hole and her ankle had rolled badly. It had been hot and swollen and she had not been able to put much weight on it for days.
They had been standing there a long time when a servant girl came out with a basket and went down to the river. The cottage door opened again and three children ran out and joined the girl. She had taken a dress out of the basket and was washing it. As she washed, the three children played near her. The girl picked up a rock and threw it into the river.
‘That’s hardly very far at all.’
The servant girl turned to the boy. ‘You mind your manners. That was a fine throw, Lucy, don’t listen to him.’
‘I’m throwing now. Watch me! I’m throwing now.’ The other girl threw a rock. A moment later one of them hit the other and then they all screamed and bawled and the servant girl yelled at them that if they didn’t stop it they could all go to bed. They were quiet for a few minutes then, but soon they were fighting again and the servant girl ordered them inside. Not long after, she took her washing up to the line near the cottage, hung it, and then she too disappeared inside.
Bridget tied Bury to a tree. He wagged his tail, strained against the rope and then sat down, resigned.
The girl had come back out into the yard and was spreading grain for the chickens when Bridget stepped out from behind the cottage.
She put her hand to her chest. ‘Lord above, you scared the Devil out of me.’ She looked beyond the house. ‘Where did you come from? What do you want?’
‘Flour, bread. Can you get some bread?’
‘Who are you, where did you come from?’
The girl was young, clearly scared. Bridget looked behind her. The cottage door was open. ‘There anyone there?’
‘Yes,’ the girl said, lying badly, her eyes gauzy with it. ‘If you’re in some kind of trouble—’
Bridget pushed past her.
‘You can’t go in there.’ The girl was coming along close behind her. A dog that was chained up on the other side of the cottage started to bark.
In the kitchen Bridget grabbed bread, flour and pork, stuffed it into the knapsack.
‘Those are not yours. Put them back. You can’t take them.’ She was crying now. ‘Please, the missus is awful kind.’ She grabbed at Bridget. Bridget pushed her hard back against a bench.
When she came back up the hill Bury barked.
‘Shut up.’ She walked up to him and grabbed his snout in her hand. ‘Be quiet.’
...
At the cave Bridget sat eating bread with the gun next to her. It was a dark afternoon, the sky grey and lumpy.
It had been raining for most of three days. They were out of meat. Without salt there was no way to preserve the meat they got. Bury was hungry. She had given him part of the hunk of pork she had taken from the place. It was too wet to hunt, no kangaroos around in the rain. She sat and looked out at the wall of rain, the river gushing below. ‘Daniel’s drunk our money.’ She knew it; she told the dog. ‘He’s drunk our money.’
...
The wet land was shiny under bright sunlight. They got a good-sized animal quickly and easily. The clearing where they hunted was not far from the cave, downstream a little way, on the other side of the river. The river had been easy to cross but was flowing faster now after the rain and twice on the way back she nearly lost her footing. Bury was swept a way down the river before he found his way out of the current and swam to the bank, emerged on the other side with his coat stuck flat to his skin. He wagged his soaking tail, shook until all his fur stuck up. Bridget carried the roo around her shoulders, blood dripping from its neck onto the ground and onto the back of her trousers.
Back in the cave they ate and later she cleaned the skin as much as she could. It was her second kangaroo skin. The other one was up the end of the cave where she had put it to dry out. A mat of flies sat on it and buzzed around it, attracted to the bits of flesh that were still stuck to the skin. She put the new one with it.
She took everything out of the knapsack. A shirt. A tinderbox. The rope. The water bladder. A knife and pipe from the sawyers. A skerrick of gunpowder she’d taken from another hut. She laid them out on the floor, sat there looking at all of it. Her blanket was at the back of the cave where she had left it. She got that now, put it down on the floor near everything else, brought the two skins over from the end of the cave, put them close to the blanket. Then she sat down again, sat staring at the tinderbox, the knife, the row of things. Then she packed things back into the knapsack, shoved it into a hole at the back of the cave. She sat back on the floor with the skins and the blanket, the gun on the ground next to her. Dull green hills, brutally silent, acres of tea-coloured sky infused with pink. She picked up the gun, put it on her knee.
...
They had been down to the clearing again, had stayed there a long time, but there were no animals that morning. Around midday they crossed back over the river and scrambled up the slope towards the cave. As she came near it she stopped. There were footprints in the silt, fresh; not hers, larger. Her blanket was still there. The kangaroo skins were still there. Her knapsack with everything in it she had taken with her.
She turned around and looked over to the valley where the cottage was.
Governor Arthur straightened a book on his desk, wiped away imaginary dust. ‘Captain Marshall, let me say this: in the end, I am little concerned with the offender’s sex. I don’t really care if the thief is an hermaphrodite. What I am concerned with is the maintenance of order in this colony. That is my role, to maintain order, and whether it be a man, a woman, a monkey or any other creature threatening that order, I do not care. What I care about is that they are brought to order, and imminently. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Need I remind you, Captain, that she was present in the houses of both Mr Scanlon, when he was robbed, and Mr Goodwin, who was robbed and killed?’
‘Thank you, Captain. You may go. And take your six men with you.’
...
Outside Marshall closed the gate and started along the road, Sergeant Barker coming along next to him.
‘Captain?’
‘Yes, Sergeant?’
‘What’s a…a herm…herm…agrovide?’
The captain cleared his throat. ‘Do you mean an hermaphrodite, Sergeant?’
The sergeant nodded. ‘Yeah. What is it, sir?’
‘Ah, it’s someone, or something, that can mate with itself. It’s male and female at the same time.’
‘Really, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘What, it can fuck itself, sir?’
‘In a way, I suppose, yes, Sergeant. If you want to put it like that.’
‘Bloody hell. That sounds alright. You sure about that, sir?’
‘Yes, I am. Fairly sure.’
‘Well, fuck me. Thank you, Captain.’
Marshall watched the sergeant turn the corner and go off up the road whistling, his walk jaunty, everything about his going suggesting he were mightily pleased with himself.
...
The party headed by Captain Marshall left Hobart Town at first light the next morning, stopped for lunch at the McCarthy residence, where Mrs McCarthy welcomed the captain graciously into her home. The rest of the soldiers were led around the back to the servants’ quarters, where they would dine on bread and beef.
The meal was an ample one of lamb, potato and beans. Marshall, however, found he had little appetite and was rather distracted. When Mrs McCarthy enquired as to the health of Mrs Marshall her question was met with silence, only the repeat of it eliciting a response.
