Wild Lands

by Nicole Alexander

  ‘You should have sought me out before you began blazing trees to suit yourself.’ Stewart joined him on the porch and studied the separate parchments for long minutes.

  ‘I’ve been here for near two years. The most I knew of you was a name on a map.’

  ‘Fetch me a light, girl,’ Mr Southerland told her.

  Kate rushed to the kitchen hut, returning with a lighted twig, young Sophie following and Mrs Horton yelling at her to attend to her chores.

  The overseer held the burning stick to the pipe as his gaze met Kate’s. He sucked hard on the tobacco until the leaves lit, a puff of smoke coming from his nose and mouth. ‘Best you take the girl away, Kate,’ he warned. ‘These two have been arguing for the last five mile.’

  Sophie remained mute as Kate dragged the girl to her side, but they moved only a few feet away, Kate holding a finger to her lips to ensure the child remained quiet. The air was thick with expectation. Kate drew on the atmosphere, aware that their droll life made a major problem between neighbours a welcome diversion for onlookers.

  ‘See,’ Mr Hardy announced with obvious satisfaction, ‘it’s as I told you. The tree with the markings is on my land, not yours. I’d appreciate it if you could move your sheep. I’ve had problem enough with the blacks burning out sections. I can’t afford to be losing more feed.’

  Retrieving his own map from a coat pocket, Stewart unfolded the paper and pressed a thumb on the area in question. ‘Aye, well, not by my reckoning, nor the date of this map,’ he replied. ‘I was here eighteen months afore you. The right to that land is mine.’

  Mr Hardy waved an impatient hand at the overseer.

  ‘Even if that be true, you’ll have to redraw the boundary so that it’s fair to both parties,’ Mr Southerland advised. ‘Once it’s done the agreement can be signed and dated.’

  ‘I’m not giving away land I claimed and paid for by the right of law.’ Refolding the map, Stewart replaced it in his coat pocket. The same hand slid towards the flintlock at his waist.

  ‘And you think I should, Scotsman?’ Mr Hardy’s voice rose. ‘You think I should give way to you?’

  ‘Aye, I’ve fought blacks, whites, fire and fever. Don’t think I’ll fold to the first new-comer land-grabbing Englishman. You’re not in your Mother Country now, Hardy. This is a new land, new rules. You’ll not be lording it over me. If you’ve a problem with the boundaries,’ Stewart told them, his fingers closing on the pistol’s hilt, ‘then get on your horses and ride to Sydney, sort it out with the Colonial Secretary, but I tell you now I’ll not give up one bit of –’

  Mr Southerland extracted a musket from his horse and levelled it at the landowner. ‘As I said, we’ll be working this out amicably ourselves, Mr Stewart, sir. If the people in Syd-e-ney Town ain’t interested in our problems with the blacks then they rightly aren’t going to be concerned over a boundary dispute. Besides, do you think the likes of them will ride all this way to see who’s right or wrong?’ He cocked the trigger. ‘We’re the ones who must come to an understanding. I thought you’d be amicable with that, especially since it was the Australian Agricultural Company that pushed you off the land you were squatting on, down south.’

  ‘How the hell did you know that?’

  The door to the house opened. Mrs Hardy, dressed in a cream and lace gown more suitable for a reception room in a grand Sydney townhouse than a bush hut, gave a sunny smile. ‘Mr Stewart, is it? Wonderful. You’re married, I hope? I would be delighted to make your wife’s acquaintance. Perhaps when the current difficulties with the natives are behind us we can meet at some midpoint between our respective farms. A picnic of sorts.’ She noticed Kate and her daughter. ‘Kate, dear, do ask Cook to make tea for us. We’ll take it here on the verandah.’

  A flummoxed Mr Stewart removed his hat and mumbled a hello.

  ‘Come now. Join us at the table.’ She linked an arm through that of the Scotsman and the man found himself escorting the lady of the house to a chair at the table. ‘You too, Mr Southerland. Those of us living in these parts must do our best to come to terms. There are so few of us, after all, and one day either of us may call on the other for assistance. Don’t you agree?’

  Kate watched in admiration as Mrs Hardy’s gracious tone eased the tense standoff. Mr Southerland lowered his musket, although the two men on the porch didn’t rush to speak. Sophie ran barefoot to her mother’s side.

  ‘There’s good grass in that area.’ Having seated Mrs Hardy, Mr Stewart began to pace the unstable verandah. ‘But I suppose we could mark out the area together. Then a fence of sorts could be constructed perhaps. As long as it’s fair, mind. I’ll not put up with any shenanigans.’

  ‘We’ll be cutting timber for the rest of our days,’ Mr Hardy complained.

  ‘A brush fence would do,’ the overseer suggested. ‘Pile branches and cut scrub to make a barrier.’

  ‘Better to use cut poles,’ Mr Stewart decided. ‘Forked sticks driven into the ground, and saplings or young trees laid across them.’

  ‘It would stop further boundary problems with other settlers,’ Mr Hardy agreed.

  ‘Aye, it would do that. If we had the labour we could add a second, shorter row. A two-railed fence.’ The Scotsman scratched at his beard. ‘It might ease the straying of sheep as well.’

  ‘We’ll use the blacks. The tribe here would do it.’ Samuel Hardy waited for the overseer to answer. ‘Well, wouldn’t they, George? You keep telling me they’re harmless, that they’ll do as they’re bid. Mind you, that doesn’t stop them from firing the land or that tracker of yours, Joe, from taking off and not returning. How long’s he been gone for now?’

  ‘They can be persuaded, but you’ll have to make it worth their while,’ the overseer replied.

  Mr Stewart also agreed to send men from his farm to assist in the building of the fence. ‘We just need to agree on the date.’

  ‘George will oversee the construction for me. We need someone armed, after all.’

  ‘All my shepherds are armed, so there’s no problems there,’ Mr Stewart told them, ‘and in truth we’ve had few problems with the blacks.’

  Mr Hardy nearly choked. ‘Convicts, armed? You must be daft, man.’

  ‘Not at all. I can’t afford to lose labour. I had one man run off six months ago or more but he came back, sad and sorry and more frightened than a child without a candle on a dark night. He’s a willing worker now he has a musket. But another, a half-caste, has been and gone twice now, without arms. I’d lay odds on his death.’

  Kate left the group to their discussions and went in search of the cook. Mary Horton was sitting in the dirt next to the hole in the hill where their stores were kept. As she moved closer Kate saw at once that the wooden door was ajar and a trail of flour leading to the north suggested robbery. The cook merely pointed on her arrival and Kate walked into the space of hollowed-out dirt. The storehouse was the cook’s domain and only she and Mr Hardy had a key to the heavy padlock. Kate never could have imagined that so much was stored within. Goods were piled high to the rafters. Bags of flour, drums of tobacco, barrels of preserved fruit and one apiece of middling sugar and the cheap black ration kind, shared space with pairs of shearing shears, quart pots, tomahawks, iron nails, a large chest of tea and another filled with clay pipes. There were piles of men’s clothing, blue blankets, a bolt of women’s dress material and any number of bottles holding potions. Kate saw that a portion of the flour was gone, some of the sugar and half of the tobacco and the men’s clothing had been rifled through. Only the cook and Mr Hardy would know exactly what had been taken. The markings on the wooden door suggested an axe was used. Kate guessed the thievery was done this morning after the men had left and she’d headed to the creek.

  ‘Blacks,’ Mrs Horton mumbled. ‘We give them blankets and sugar, flour and the like and still the ungrateful sods take what’s ours. We’ll be on rations now until the next trip to Syd-e-ney or when the crop comes in. Whatever’s first. You’ll be busy the
next few days, girl, so no lay-abouting. I’ll have to do an inventory. Mrs Kable will have the book. She always has the book.’

  ‘You mean Mr Hardy,’ Kate corrected.

  ‘I mean whatever I say.’

  Kate didn’t argue. ‘Mrs Horton, Mrs Hardy would like tea made and –’

  ‘Tea? They want tea when the blacks have done this?’

  ‘Would our blacks have done it?’

  ‘Our blacks.’ The cook spat in the dirt. ‘Jelly-belly, you sound like George Southerland. He thinks by bedding the women he can keep them in line. Throw them a few stores, pass out a handful of trinkets. In Syd-e-ney there are enough of us to push the natives over the hills, to keep us safe, but out here, well it’s them that will be doing the pushing. If we run out of food we’re not like them. We can’t scratch around in the dirt to get a feed.’

  The wheat crop was still to be planted. There’d not been enough rain and the little moisture stored from March’s showers had quickly dried. ‘We must hope for rain, Mrs Horton.’

  ‘Pray on it, lass, if you’re a believer, for we’ll be out of rainwater in a few weeks and then we’ll be drinking from the creek. Eh, where are you going?’

  ‘To tell Mr Hardy that we’ve been robbed. That door needs to be mended.’

  ‘Best be on your guard.’ The woman scrambled to her feet and hurried after Kate. ‘For now we know.’

  ‘What do we know?’

  The cook looked at Kate as if she were foolish. ‘That they’ve been watching us.’

  Chapter 18

  1838 June – near the Big River

  They were camped in a valley near pointy-topped hills. Behind them lay the mountain in whose shadow they had met the old man in the hut. The giant monolith with its forests and low-scrubbed heathlands was now invisible, hidden behind a line of stony hills, while in the east the sun was yet to rise, the land cast in tones of pinks and purple. Adam shrugged off the kangaroo hide cloak; beside him Bidjia stirred. The head of their clan had been quiet the last few days but they had kept up a reasonable pace, although their midday rests had lengthened. Jardi had risen to explore their surrounds and would soon return. Light seeped across country captured by the chill of winter. They’d covered a mosaic of landscapes over the previous months but the valley they were in now held the promise of glistening life come spring. Here there would be good grasses and animals in abundance. Only water and warmth were needed to bring this land to life.

  In the west where the countryside lay in shadows, a line of thin smoke appeared to form a bridge between land and sky. Blacks were burning the terrain. Fire-stick farming had made the land plentiful. There would be many tubers and fibrous roots for the eating in this peaceful place. The whites were not yet here in great numbers and Adam and Jardi both thought Bidjia would be tempted to stop, for they had already travelled far and the great hills which they headed for and that existed as a barrier between land and water were not yet visible. They had been on the run for nearly nine months. It was time to stop moving, but Bidjia grew more adamant with every passing day. He wished to follow the gathering creeks and rivers, to trace these life-giving waterways to the mountains and beyond to the sea.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t wish to stay here? The nights grow frosty and this would be a good place to camp for the winter.’

  Bidjia blew on the pile of twigs and leaves, gradually feeding the fire so that it grew hot. ‘We have already spent too long here and my bones grow weary. With my lands gone they draw me to the great waters. To a place like that I knew as a child.’ He laid a larger branch on the growing flames. ‘I would have our blood continue. I would have Jardi find himself a woman so our clan goes on, so that we are not lost. So that our people and our stories survive. To do so we must find a compatible tribe.’

  ‘We’re safe here,’ Adam argued.

  ‘We are not free of the white settlers,’ Bidjia countered. ‘I fear this place we have entered. It is like the placid river. Here the surface appears still, suggesting good fishing but beneath, the currents boil and rage. The fish in their confusion swim in all directions and eat each other in bewilderment.’

  ‘You sense all this?’ Adam wished he had such foresight.

  Bidjia shrugged. ‘Some I sense, some I see, some you learnt from the old man in the hut, the rest I know from what we have left behind. The white man who has a cow killed will kill a black in vengeance. It may not be the black that speared it, nor may the white man kill just one of us. In truth he does not care. We are nothing to him. He has no respect for our way of life and we do not understand his. We live from and with the land, they seek to own it, control it. And here,’ he spread his arms wide, ‘it is worse, for the whites are not yet everywhere and so they are scared of our kind. They hate what they do not understand. They wish we would go away, or at least take the sugar and blankets that they offer and in return see us toil for them.’

  Adam unwrapped the remaining black duck left from the three he’d snared the previous evening. He’d stuffed its beak with pepper and wrapped the bird in damp grasses so the night’s fast would be broken by more than a mouthful of water and some tuberous roots. They were good eating, although Bidjia laughed at his white-man preparation.

  ‘They are like meat-ants, the settlers. They build their nests and then pick the bones clean of each place they come to.’ Bidjia stopped speaking, lifted a leg until his foot rested in the crook of his knee and leant on his spear. ‘They know we are here.’

  It was not the whites the old man spoke of. Adam threaded a stick through the small carcass and held it above the fire. Close by lay his musket.

  ‘The musket is no good here.’ Bidjia spoke as if he read Adam’s mind. ‘The spear and the boomerang are quiet, like the rustle of grasses. Remember that as we move through this place.’

  Adam rotated the duck carefully as the flames licked the feathers burning the plumage. Once the body was blackened he rested the ends of the threaded stick on the forked branches that made a makeshift spit.

  Jardi appeared from the trees with two quart pots filled with water. He’d taken to wearing a cotton shirt with the onset of colder weather. Squatting by the fire he wedged the vessels in the embers. ‘There are signs, but I saw no-one.’

  ‘They will come,’ their father said with confidence. ‘They always come.’

  Yesterday morning they had awoken to the sound of musket fire. The younger men had been keen to investigate but Bidjia had been adamant. They were moving forwards, not back, and he had no wish to interfere in another’s fight. They’d already been involved in enough skirmishes.

  ‘We have no clan ties to these people,’ the old man reminded them. ‘They will not like us being here.’

  Adam rotated the spit. ‘I wouldn’t have expected them to be any different than the rest.’ The moment they had left their lands it had begun. They’d soon discovered that they were not always welcome when they crossed into new lands. There was always a small group of warriors ready to attack without provocation. All three of them had the scars to prove it.

  Jardi poured sugar into each of the quart pots. ‘To the west along the water there were women’s things scattered nearby, baskets, cooking tools. The camp appeared seasonal. It looked like a raiding party perhaps two, three nights ago. They are ahead of us.’

  ‘White?’ Adam asked.

  ‘There was one with boots, the others blacks. Eight including a woman, have headed east, another five, old people and children, escaped north.’

  ‘I have seen enough fighting.’ Bidjia turned to his white son. ‘Now do you understand why I tell you not to use the musket? It is best that we pass through here quietly.’

  Jardi turned to his father and laughed. ‘My white brother is no good with the spear. He has not the muscle for the throwing stick. The musket is easier for him.’

  Adam charged Jardi, knocking him into the dirt. They rolled and tumbled across the ground, strong hands clutching at taut bare skin. They laughed and shouted abuse a
t the other before stopping, their bodies crusted in dirt. Finally Adam extended a hand and helped Jardi to his feet.

  They ate quickly, crunching the soft bones of the bird between their teeth and sharing out the tea. By the time the sun was warming their skin they were ready to move. Jardi doused the fire with dirt and the three men set off on foot.

  The country was sparsely timbered in places and they made easy going of the gullies and small rises that threaded the valley. Over the previous months they’d been watchful, tentative, but as they’d headed north the white man’s settlements grew fewer and today the men felt a sense of exhilaration. They’d kept away from the dirt tracks, avoiding shanties and stockmen. It almost seemed as if they’d walked free of the settlers’ boundaries and come to untouched country. But in truth they knew better.

  At noon they were stopped by a river. Kangaroos and wallabies startled by their approach lifted their heads tentatively from where they nibbled grasses on the sandy bank. They hopped away cautiously to hide among the timber as the three men walked down the steep bank. The river moved sluggishly, waiting to be topped up with rain from the mountains to the east. Jardi wanted to build a canoe, to speed down the waterway to the west until the land flattened out and he could see the setting sun. There was logic to this. The days were cool. The nights grew long. A warm place to wait out winter appealed. Such a thought was not welcomed by Bidjia though, who’d grown up in the shadow of cliffs and fished in the great waters.

  Bidjia waded into the water, testing the depth. It was too deep to cross.

  ‘We’ll go further, find a narrower point.’ Adam remained mindful of what the old man in the hut had told him. He shared his thoughts with the men, that this must be the Big River. ‘Best we be on guard.’

  There was a waterhole not far from where they stood. The older man walked to the edge where great trees hugged the moist edges, their massive roots exposed like skeletons. The blue-brown stillness of the pool of water suggested depth and good fishing but although the day had grown warm the place felt cold. There were scarred trees on both sides of the waterhole. Some of the markings were indistinguishable, their shapes obscured by a lack of light due to the thick canopy, others were recent and clearly defined. One tree was scored in the shape of a shield, another trunk bore an outline that resembled a spear thrower. The two younger men clambered up the steep bank and walked out into the timber. A tree with a large trunk and thick, fibrous bark had recently had an outline cut into it. Stone wedges had been inserted around the edges to loosen the bark.