The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger

by Jackie French

Had he brought me apples?

  The man slipped under the fence rails. He carried a bridle in his hand. Suddenly I realised he was about to slip it over my head.

  No one rode me without an apple!

  I bit his hand before he got the bit fully in. I heard him swear. He stepped back, limping a bit, looking at his hand to see if I’d drawn blood.

  ‘Well.’ He peered at me in the moonlight. ‘It won’t be you I take. Pity. You’ve a grand look about you. I reckon you could outrace any police nag in the country.’

  ‘He could.’

  Suddenly there was a shadow beside the fence.

  ‘I wondered where you’d gone,’ said Annie.

  CHAPTER 53

  Rebel Yell, May 1865

  The mistress stood in the shadows by the paling fence. ‘Well, bushranger. You’ve decided you’d like more of our hospitality?’

  He shrugged. ‘My other horse is lame. If you don’t have fresh horses you’re dead. And I’m not keen on dying.’

  ‘So you decided to help yourself to one of ours?’

  He wasn’t smiling now. ‘Who’s to stop me?’

  ‘I am.’ She drew a pistol from behind her back. He reached for one of his, but stopped as she pointed hers at his head.

  He glared at her. ‘You said no one was armed.’

  She smiled. ‘I lied. I invited you to dance, Mr Hall. It’s a poor guest who robs his hostess.’

  He gave a snort of disgust. ‘What would you know of it? You with your silk and jewels. Have you ever been hungry? Had your land stole, your wife, your child, your cattle?’ He reached toward his pistols again.

  Annie held hers up to her eyes, ready to shoot. ‘Keep your hands where they are or you’ll be dead before you’ve got your pistols cocked. I can shoot a lemon off a tree at fifty paces, bushranger. You’d be surprised what I can do. You’d be surprised what I’ve lost too. Look at me. What do you see?’

  The bushranger shrugged. ‘A lady. White hands that have never done a real day’s work. Silk skirts and jewels.’

  She laughed.

  The bushranger looked up. She pulled off her glove, then held out her hand to him. The other still held her pistol.

  ‘Look again.’

  He took her hand. He looked at it. ‘It’s soft…’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘It’s the butter. Make enough pastry, enough puddings, and your hands will be soft. But there are calluses too. I’ve sweated, and for more years than you, young man. Look at my hand again.’

  He did, still not understanding.

  ‘It’s a brown hand, not a white one,’ she said gently. ‘You see the silk dress, you see the jewels. Which are glass, by the way. I sold the real ones. The brown of my hand isn’t from the sun, young man.’

  He looked at her properly now. She pulled her fingers away and stroked me, just as I liked it, along my nose. I shuffled at her fingers. The jewels in her hair gleamed in the moonlight. Her pistols glistened too.

  ‘I have been hungry,’ she said softly. ‘More hungry than you can ever know, Mr White Man, like my belly was nibbled by mice. I have sat with the dead around me. Not just my family but all my people, every one of them dead except for me. My lands gone to the white man, those I loved lost to their sickness. But then I was given a second chance. A missionary family took me in, and gave me a trade. And then a good man, a kind man, made me his wife.’

  She lowered the pistol. ‘I won’t let a bushranger steal from my family. But I might give a horse to a man who wants a second chance.’

  ‘You mean…’

  She patted me again. ‘They say this horse killed a man. My husband. No man will ride him now.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘I can’t sell a horse that might have killed my husband, even if I don’t believe that’s what happened.’

  For a moment they stared at each other. ‘That horse bit me. You’re offering me a killer?’

  ‘He bit you because he didn’t get his apple. I’m offering you a second chance. A second chance for you and for Rebel Yell. Leave off bushranging, boy. You’ve got money, haven’t you? You’ve robbed rich men for long enough. I heard you once got five hundred pounds just for one ransom. You can’t have spent it all on drink and women.’

  He hesitated. He nodded. ‘A bank account. But not in my name.’

  ‘Buy a ship’s passage in your false name. Grow a beard or a big moustache. Go to America. It’s where I came from,’ she added. ‘There’s no second chance for one with my colour skin there. But there may be for you. Rebel Yell’s a good horse. He’ll carry you well, while you arrange your money and grow your whiskers. When you’re about to sail send a message to the Cow and Whistle. The landlord will make sure Rebel Yell gets safely back here.’

  She held out her hand again. ‘Well?’

  He made no move to take her hand. ‘What if I do?’ he asked at last. ‘What if I come back in five years, maybe, with a new name and big moustaches, and ask to marry your little daughter? Would you welcome me then?’

  ‘Mattie Jane will be dead in five years.’ Her voice was flat now, all emotion gone. ‘She has the coughing sickness that killed my family. She’ll not be here next Christmas. You made a dying girl happy, Ben Hall. You made my daughter queen of the ball. For the first time in years she’s dreaming of a future, not a headstone. That’s her horse you’re going to take—and she was the one who told me to let you take him. So yes, you’ll have a welcome here.’ She dug into her skirts.

  It was an apple! I whickered happily. I’d known I could smell one somewhere.

  CHAPTER 54

  Annie, May 1865

  She helped the bushranger saddle up the horse. She slipped into the kitchen, and brought him bread, and meat, and plum pudding wrapped in a cloth. She brought him a bag of apples too, to keep Rebel Yell happy till they got to Sydney.

  For a moment—just a moment—she wished she were riding with him. A new life, not knowing your tomorrow. A life without everyone needing you, and asking what to do.

  But only for a moment. She wouldn’t fail her children again.

  He swung himself up onto Rebel Yell. The horse reared, then cantered in a circle. How long had it been since anyone had ridden him?

  But the bushranger kept his seat. He didn’t yell, or try to use his whip. He simply waited till the big horse steadied, then patted his neck.

  Annie nodded. This man knew horses. Knew women too. He was a charmer. That would all stand him in good stead. She waited till he’d got his other horse on a lead rope, reached down into her pocket again, then held something out. ‘One more thing, Mr Hall. But you don’t have to take it.’

  He stared down at the tiny oval painting on a piece of board. ‘It’s your daughter.’

  ‘My Mattie Jane. Her friend painted it—Sarah, who you danced with inside. It’s a good likeness. No, don’t worry. Sarah likes painting. I have others.’

  ‘I’d like it,’ he said quietly. ‘Whatever happens, I’ll keep it all my life, to remember this night.’

  ‘Good luck to you then, Mr Hall. Best go now, before any others come out and see which way you’ve headed. Ride carefully.’

  ‘I will.’

  He lifted his hand to her. She blew him a kiss. It was wrong of her, but there was no one to see, just him, and the horses.

  She watched as the bushranger rode off in the moonlight. Then she brushed the tears away, put on her smile and her gloves again, and walked back into the room of music and candlelight.

  CHAPTER 55

  Rebel Yell, May 1865

  It felt good to be ridden again. It felt good to have a master. This man had gentle hands.

  And now he knew I needed apples.

  It had been boring in the paddock. Now the world stretched out before us, the new smells of bush, of wallabies and native cats. I could smell an eagle’s nest, the sharp stink of the bird’s droppings. I wanted to gallop, I felt so free, but he held me back to a fast canter. The other horse cantered behind us. It was no match for me. I could sense that i
t knew it. I would lead, and it would follow.

  We clip clopped down the road for a while, then my new master pulled me off into the trees, away from the droppings of other horses, the rutted cart tracks and the dust.

  It felt good to be among the trees again. It felt good to have the stars wheel overhead, to canter with the wind and know no fence was going to stop me.

  It felt good.

  CHAPTER 56

  Ben Hall, May 1865

  Ben Hall felt the leaves brush his hat as they rode below the trees. The moonlight washed silver shadows across the tussocks.

  He wanted to sing, and to hell with any trap or informer who might be listening. He wanted to wave his hat in the air.

  It had been years since he’d felt like this. Yesterday all he’d had was anger mixed with hopelessness. Now he felt as though he could float up to the moon.

  He bent down to pat the horse’s neck. It was a good goer, with a firm and even stride. He could feel its power, even though they’d done no more than canter. A horse like this would carry you for years.

  Maybe he could pay to have it shipped to America with him? Mrs Marks wouldn’t mind. He’d write to her from California, pay her properly for the horse. He’d write to Mattie Jane.

  That girl couldn’t die. If he could live then so could Mattie Jane. She had courage and was stubborn too. He reckoned courage like that could outface even death.

  He breathed in the soft night air, smelling of gum leaves and old bark and horse. It was good to be alive. He had a future now. A second chance.

  CHAPTER 57

  Rebel Yell, May 1865

  I could have galloped through the stars at the horizon and kept going long past dawn. But instead the new master stopped by a creek, a thin line wandering through the rocks.

  The master dismounted. He lifted off my saddle and blanket, tied me to a tree till he hobbled the other horse, and then he hobbled me. It was a loose hobble. I could lean down to drink, and crop the grass.

  I expected the master to light a fire. But he just leant against a tree. He watched us as the moon sank down out of sight. The stars began to shine, the way they always did when the moon vanished. I could hear a cuckoo call to say that dawn was near. Plonk plonk plonk plooooonk.

  I bent down and tasted the grass. It wasn’t as lush as my paddock, but it was a new taste. It was good after so long.

  ‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘How do you like being a bushranger’s horse?’

  I glanced at him, in case he was saying something I needed to understand, like ‘Come here’ or ‘Stop’. But he was just using lots of words, the way humans do. Words that are not worth trying to understand.

  I went back to munching. He came over and stroked my nose. ‘You’re not a bushranger’s horse, are you, boy?’ he said softly. ‘I need to remember that. I’m a new man now. What should I call myself, eh? James? James Worthy, respectable citizen. Or Harold Goodfellow. No, I could never think of myself as a Harold.’ He stroked me again. ‘I’ve got your apples in my saddle-bag. I’m hanging them high in a tree where you can’t get them, in case I can’t get you saddled tomorrow without one. I don’t want to get bit again.’

  I bumped him with my nose when I heard the word ‘apple’. He laughed, and stroked me again. ‘I think you and I will get on all right,’ he said. ‘We need each other. You behave right, old boy, and before I sail away I’ll buy you a whole barrel of apples. Should give you indigestion for a week.’

  He laughed, but softly. ‘I’m due to meet the others day after tomorrow. I’ll tell them what I’ve planned. Old Horricks will get the money for me. And then it’s Sydney for me, or Brisbane. And then California, where they’ve never heard the name Ben Hall.’

  He wrapped himself in a couple of blankets then, and slept. He woke sometimes, sitting up and staring around when a wallaby jumped too close, and later when a kookaburra laughed above us. Any little noise seemed to wake him. But each time he lay down again and went to sleep.

  The sun was bouncing on the horizon, all fat and red, when we set off again, still keeping to the trees. I could taste my morning apple, sweet in my mouth.

  This was a good man. He knew about apples, and how to tell you what to do with just a touch of his leg. He never used a whip or swore.

  I liked riding among the trees. Roads smell of many horses. But here there was just the one other horse, and I was getting used to him. The ground was soft under my feet. It was more fun to dodge the branches than plod along a road.

  I was happy. I missed Mattie Jane, just a bit. But maybe she would come and find me, and I would have the two of them, my master and Mattie Jane, and trees full of apples just for me.

  CHAPTER 58

  Rebel Yell, 5 May 1865

  It was a good creek, twisting through the trees with deep waterholes that smelt of fish and ducks and wallabies who had squatted there to drink. The master hobbled us. He didn’t need to tie me up while he hobbled the other horse now. He knew that I would wait till he was ready. It was always a loose hobble, so we could travel as far as we needed to find the sweetest grass, the freshest waterhole, or scare away a wombat who trundled too close during the night.

  The master pulled up bracken. I wondered why, as I munched my grass. Bracken is no good to eat, even if you are very hungry. But there is no point thinking too hard about the strange ways of men.

  At last he had a pile. He placed a blanket over it, then lay down, using his saddle to rest his head. He pulled something from his pocket. It was a piece of wood. He stared at it for a long time, then smiled, and put it in his pocket once again.

  I rubbed myself against a tree trunk. A big fly had bitten my hindquarters that afternoon, and I was itchy. Suddenly I stopped.

  I could hear horses. I could smell them too. And men. They were creeping through the trees, still too far away to see.

  I snorted, and pawed the ground, then gave a neigh of greeting. The master looked up. ‘What is it, boy?’

  I snorted again. The creeping sound had stopped. But they were still there. Suddenly I was uneasy. Men and horses should come straight up to you. They shouldn’t stop nearby like that, not with no sounds of laughter or smells of food on a fire.

  The master stood up. He looked around, then trod quietly through the trees, peering as he went. But the men and horses were too far away for him to find.

  At last he came back to our camp. He lay down and shut his eyes. I heard him snore.

  The creeping sound began once more.

  I pawed the ground. I snorted. The master sat up. The darkness hid everything but the starlit tree trunks nearby.

  And the creeping sound had stopped.

  The master looked at me. I tossed my head, nervous now; I wasn’t even sure why. There was more wrong here than I could understand.

  I stood still and silent so I could listen. The other horse was still too. He didn’t have my nose and hearing, but he understood that I was wary, and our master too.

  An owl swooped low, almost touching my nose. Bats flickered above the creek, darting at the mosquitoes.

  There was no sound of horses or of men.

  Finally my master wrapped the blanket around himself, and leant back against a tree. He dozed again, waking every time either of us horses moved or made a sound.

  It was a long night. Even the grass tasted sour, and fear burnt through my body. The men and horses were still there, to the left of the big star. But there was no way I could explain that to my master, no way to make him understand.

  I listened all the night, but the footsteps never came again.

  CHAPTER 59

  Ben Hall, 5 May 1869

  He couldn’t sleep. The new horse kept snorting, and pawing the ground.

  Had it heard something he’d missed? Each time he listened, but the bush around was quiet.

  Too quiet. There should have been wallabies drinking from the creek, a wombat maybe. He’d have scared them off earlier, but now the horses were grazing and he was making no no
ise, they should be creeping out again.

  He’d leave at first light. The other two would wonder where he’d got to, but he suspected they’d guess. He couldn’t see either of them wanting a farmer’s life, but they knew that’s what he was still, in his heart.

  He pulled the girl’s picture from his pocket. He couldn’t see her features in the starlight, but he could still remember her face, so earnest and unafraid. He’d write to her, with his new name. He wished he’d asked her to choose one for him.

  The horse was quiet now. He shut his eyes. He wouldn’t worry about the money in the bank. He had seventy-four guineas in his pocket. That was enough to get him to California. He could get the rest wired to him over there.

  Now at last he heard the gentle thud of a wallaby. An owl hooted; another answered further away. The breeze felt gentle on his skin. He’d miss the smell of gum leaves. He’d heard there were no gum trees over there.

  It took a while to realise he was happy.

  CHAPTER 60

  Rebel Yell, 5 May 1865

  Dawn came gently, with clouds hiding the sun on the horizon. It was a grey morning; the dew was clinging to me, cold and damp.

  My master stood up with the first light. He beckoned to me: already I knew his signals. I plodded over, still listening for the horses and the men. Midnight was along the creek, munching at the grass.

  The master stroked my nose. ‘We’re going,’ he said softly. ‘They should be here by now. Something is wrong. I’ll fetch Midnight and saddle you up.’ He stroked my nose the way I liked, then lifted his saddle-bag from the branch, and handed me an apple.

  I crunched it, feeling the juice run down my throat. For a moment the crunching covered the other sounds behind…

  Footsteps. Men this time. Not horses. Men’s feet crackling on the bark and leaves.

  I let out a neigh. I stamped my feet. My master tensed. He began to turn around.

  The world became noise, behind me and on both sides. My master’s back grew wet and red. Blood flew out, splattering his clothes, the grass, the trees.