Absolution Creek

by Nicole Alexander

  Dressed in ankle-length grey, Purcell’s wife appeared. She was a raw-boned, wide-hipped woman with white hair and a thick string of pearls. Scrubber figured she’d blend into the landscape without them; certainly they were the only thing worth remembering about her person – they gleamed white like gull’s eggs. His fingers itched at the sight of them.

  ‘Well, move on, the both of you. We don’t need loiterers here.’

  They parted under the dragon’s stare, although Scrubber made a point of turning to watch the girl walk around the corner of the homestead, scuffing the dirt with her bare feet, her skirt swaying slightly as she moved.

  Chapter 19

  Waverly Station, North West Slopes, 1923

  A collar of sweat itched her neck. Outside the cottage the call of an owl broke the night’s silence. Squib rubbed her eyelids. Great shafts of moonlight poured through the roughly fitted timber walls, tracing a path over clothes hung on pegs; a table piled with children’s Learners and devotionals; and her brother’s much coveted single bed. The moon highlighted Jesus writhing on a wooden cross, a faded picture of Mary and the toes of her stepsister, a scant inch from her nose. Crawling over her sleeping sisters, Squib’s foot became entangled in bedclothes and she landed with a thud on the tampered dirt floor. Despite the daily watering of the floor and a solid sweeping, the dirt clung to her sweaty legs as she shoved her hands through the armholes of her dress. Once outside on the sloping veranda, Squib brushed the sticky grains with determination. The floorboards were thick with dirt. They usually slept outside in the summer, but a howling dust storm had struck at dusk, forcing them indoors to a night of heat-wrecked sleep and midnight squabbles.

  Her father was sitting on the edge of the timbered flooring, a curl of pipe smoke rising toward heaven. ‘That you, Squib?’ His gaze was fixed on the illuminated trees edging their world.

  She sat beside him and wove her fingers between his. Matt Hamilton squeezed her thumb, once, twice. She hated her nickname, yet somehow it sounded better when her father used it.

  ‘Your mother always liked these nights when the moon was fat with light. Me, I can never sleep.’

  ‘Me neither. Too hot.’ Her mother used to call her father ‘her Matty’. Squib liked it, liked the soft sound of it. It was much better than Mr Hamilton or plain old Matt.

  ‘Be hotter when daylight comes.’ He took a swig of water from his canvas bag.

  Squib could already taste the grit on her lips, could imagine the sun prickling her skin to redness. Accepting the water she took great mouthfuls of the bark-tinged liquid. It ran down her chin to wet her dress and splatter the timber flooring. She gulped, then hiccupped. Her father’s heavy hand ruffled her hair.

  ‘Everything all right with you young’uns?’

  She shrugged. ‘I guess.’ It had been a subject of consternation between them when her widowed father took another wife. It came soon after her mother’s death from a snakebite when Squib was just eight years of age. She recalled the day clearly on account of the fact that her mother had stolen money from a village store, and then admitted the theft to ‘her Matty’. Instead of returning the coin they had run. That night while camped in the bush, Squib’s mother was bitten.

  It wasn’t that Squib didn’t like her new mother, it was just that she preferred her old one, the one that birthed her, loved her. The new one came with a lemon-sour daughter older than Squib, and managed to birth a new one named Beth with her father. We’re stuck with her now, her brother Ben commented upon noticing his stepmother’s bulging belly for the first time. Ben was the one who explained that things would never be the same. That their stepmother wouldn’t take to them on account of their dead mother.

  Inside the hut, Beth began to whimper. Her father glanced at the fat moon dropping towards the horizon as Beth let out a dog’s howl of complaint. ‘Come on, Squib.’

  They walked the half-mile guided by moonlight, reaching Mr Purcell’s stable as a breeze rustled the leaves in the surrounding trees. With her father’s horse smartly saddled, they mounted up and were soon trotting off into the scrub, Squib wedged between him and the bobbing horse’s neck. They rode for some time in silence. Pre-dawn teased them with a moment of coolness as a breeze picked up before gradually dropping away to the hills in the distance. Hair stuck to Squib’s forehead as she accepted the reins from her father and eased the horse into a walk. The scent of dust was thick, tinged with smoke from a bush fire far to the north.

  Being the Sabbath, her father was free from work. As Church was a day’s ride away they were left to endure scripture readings from Abigail instead of the free time once given with a motherly kiss. It had become something of a rigmarole this Christian thing, Squib decided. Saturday night was now bath time, and the tub was dragged into the kitchen and filled with murky dam water, the surface greasy with homemade soap and water that bathed four children. This procedure was followed by de-lousing with a sharp comb, oil and lice powder and a dose of Epsom salts. At the thought of it Squib grimaced. Abigail was convinced she and Ben were the bearers of the lice infecting the household on a regular basis, and they had both been subjected to a severe hair cutting. Squib didn’t bother arguing that sharing towels and beds probably didn’t help. The only good thing about it being Sunday tomorrow was that Tuesday was Christmas. Their father always made them something each. Last year Ben and she had both got catapults.

  They were heading back towards their cottage, which in comparison to the Purcells’ low-slung homestead looked like a shack. Squib was glad her father was now the overseer – it meant a new house. They were just waiting for the dead overseer’s wife and kids to leave. Her father thought they’d have to be thrown off the place.

  ‘Abigail doesn’t really like Ben and me, you know, Father.’ The horse slowed its rhythmic gait and stretched its hind legs out lazily. Her father took control of the reins.

  ‘Sure she does.’ He twitched the leather and clicked his tongue in encouragement. ‘It’s just a bit different for her. She’s used to better things.’

  ‘What things?’ Squib looked over her shoulder at her father’s creased face as the glow of dawn shadowed their progress. Things could have been worse: it might have been her father who’d died from snakebite; his body laid out on an old door while the coffin was hammered together.

  ‘Anyway, with Mrs Purcell taking her on two afternoons a week, things will change.’

  ‘Why can’t Mrs Purcell read? Why does Abigail have to read to her?’

  ‘It’s a squatter thing, I guess. They’ve got more money than they know what to do with and Mrs Purcell wants the company.’

  Being a squatter was something Ben aspired to. Rich people had sheep and land and paid others to work it for them. Squib waved away an insect and curled her fingers through the horse’s mane. All that reading to Mrs Purcell meant she now had twice as many chores to do. Her stepsister could never be found when it came time to take the washing off the line or being nursemaid to Beth or carting in wood for the fire or drinking water. Even supper had fallen to her to prepare on the two afternoons Abigail was away. Squib didn’t mind that much, except she would have liked to have known what her stepmother was doing with the money she earned.

  He rubbed her shoulder, his touch light. ‘Don’t you get yourself all mussed up before the Bible reading. You know how she likes you all to keep clean.’

  ‘No, Father.’ Light was beginning to stream through the hills to the east of them when they arrived back at the stables. Squib gave the horse a good brush with the currycomb while her father greased his saddle, and then begged him for a piggyback.

  ‘You’re thirteen, Squib.’

  She grinned all the way as she bobbed across the paddock. The cottage stood on a low rise and was flanked by a row of crooked trees on the western side and an expanse of nothingness on the east and north.

  ‘Your older sister will be leaving at the end of the week, Squib. I’ve not told her but she’s at the age for work. Mrs Purcell has a
pplied to the Gordon family of Wangallon Station on her behalf and they’re expecting her.’

  Squib’s eyes widened. ‘Jane won’t like that.’

  Her father nodded. ‘Neither will her mother. You’d best clear out when I tell them.’

  Squib reckoned she would. Jane had done her best to keep an eye on both Squib and her brother, Ben, since her father remarried. If she couldn’t accuse them of some minor crime on a daily basis, she’d make something up.

  Half a mile away they could hear the four-year-old Beth screaming, the sound carrying towards them like a wounded animal. At the cottage her father faltered, dropped her, straightened his back with an exaggerated sigh and walked inside.

  ‘Psst.’ It was Ben, crouched at the corner of the house, a wedge of damper in his hand. ‘She’s blaming you for waking Beth,’ he whispered as Squib trailed him out past the vegetable patch. ‘Here.’ He handed her a bare mouthful of bread before stuffing his with the greater portion. Squib chewed the dough hungrily, pinching her nostrils as they passed the dunny.

  ‘Rank,’ Ben commented. ‘Come on.’

  They quietly circumnavigated the cottage and raced each other towards the stable where Mr Purcell’s young colts were already yarded for a mustering job the next day.

  ‘Beth’s been crying since you left.’

  ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ Squib scrambled through the wooden railings.

  Ben gave a snort. ‘You never sleep.’

  In the yard, Ben separated one horse from the others, directing the animal into a large yard with a single thickset hitching post in the centre. ‘Best of three,’ he called, climbing on top of the post. Squib chased the colt directly past the post. Ben leapt for the animal’s back and landed heavily in the dirt.

  ‘Clean miss,’ Squib yelled, clambering onto the post. She stood silently, balancing carefully as her brother brushed himself off and ran behind the colt, chasing the horse towards her. As the horse trotted past, Squib gave a yelp and sprang from the post. She too landed in a spray of dust on the hard ground. ‘Touched him,’ she called proudly. ‘Your turn.’

  ‘You’re bleeding.’ Ben pointed at her knees as he readied for the colt to pass. He sprang forward quickly on his second attempt and landed on the horse’s back only to slip to the ground. ‘Ouch.’

  Squib balanced on the post and counted softly to four as the colt raced past in a flurry of dust. She leant forward, pushed off with her toes and launched herself into the air. This time her aim was straight. The horse was beneath her. Quickly flinging her leg over and grasping the colt’s mane, she yelled with delight. ‘I did it!’

  Ben’s mouth turned. ‘Dumb luck.’

  ‘Well, dumb luck’s better than no luck.’ She wiped at the sheen of perspiration with dirt-smeared hands and slid from the colt’s back.

  They mucked about in the yards until it neared Bible time. Ben looked at her from head to toe. ‘She’ll give you a roasting,’ he warned. ‘You’re filthy.’

  Squib figured she probably wasn’t at her best. Her knees were bruised and bleeding, her dress torn, and dust seemed to be sticking with equal determination to skin, hair and clothing. Worst of all she was starving and she wasn’t of a mind to be withheld a meal just because she’d wanted a bit of fun. The trough next to the iron water tank was full and it was into this she sat fully clothed. Ben’s mouth gaped.

  ‘It’ll be almost dry by the time we get back.’ She rubbed at the dirt on her dress, scrubbed herself and then dunked her head under the algae-slimed liquid as Ben busied himself, splashing water on his face. The sides of the trough were slippery and sludge plastered the bottom. Squib managed to get out without falling and promptly shook herself like a dog. ‘Ready.’ She patted her hair into order, ignoring the stinging grazes on her knees. Ben gave her a shake of his head.

  The dog appeared on Monday. He was all bony rib cage and large droopy eyes, and Squib knew immediately she wanted him. She named him Dog, tied him up under one of the crooked trees on the western side of the house, gave him water and fed him scraps of bread snuck from the kitchen. At nearly fifteen years of age, Ben was taking lessons from Mr Purcell’s farrier. His hands ached from belting in horse shoes. Quite often he returned to the stables at dark to be with the horses. With the heat making the air almost too dense to breathe, any stock work was completed by midday, which left the afternoon for the men to attend to yard building and fence repairs. For once Squib liked the hazy heat-filled day. There was no one around.

  That first day the yellow dog wouldn’t let her pat him, but by dusk he was nuzzling her arm and by midnight, when the cottage was bathed in darkness, he was lying stretched out by her side with his head on her arm, both of them gazing into each other’s wide brown eyes. Squib spent the night outdoors, cool and uncramped, her timber confines exchanged for a web of stars. Tomorrow was Christmas and she dreamt of a horse she could call her very own.

  From the cottage came the sound of Beth whimpering, and her father and stepmother arguing. Their voices rose and fell intermittently.

  ‘They’ve got no proof, Matt,’ Abigail was saying. ‘Tell them to search the cottage. Ask Mr Purcell if I can speak to his wife. She’ll believe me.’

  ‘It’s gone too far for that, Abigail. The necklace went missing after your last visit to the main homestead.’

  ‘But I didn’t take it. You believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘People get an itch for wanting more, Abigail. I can’t blame you for wanting to better yourself. Why, my first wife –’

  ‘Your first wife knew no better. I do.’

  ‘It’s a loose loyalty that exists out here in the bush. One man’s problem is another’s boon. Evans has pointed the finger and the men are beginning to take sides. There’s talk that Martin didn’t hang himself, that maybe I wanted the overseer’s job too much.’

  ‘Evans? That jumped-up –’

  ‘He’ll be the next overseer, Abigail.’

  ‘But I didn’t take the necklace.’

  ‘I can’t risk the authorities getting involved. I’ve got two kids to think about.’

  ‘You have four, Matt.’

  ‘Two kids that will be taken away from me if I’m not careful. You know that.’

  ‘How a man like you ever married a woman like that –’

  ‘She was a good woman and she didn’t breed a conniving daughter. I want you to start packing. If things turn real sour, we’ll have to leave and soon.’

  Squib lay bug-eyed awake. The lamp went out in the cottage and a door slammed. She couldn’t believe what she’d just overheard. Abigail must have stolen Mrs Purcell’s pearl necklace and because of that her father would lose his job as overseer. What was worse was that now they would have to leave just in case Mr Purcell called in the coppers. Her father always said that she and Ben would be safe on Waverly Station, that Mr Purcell would turn a blind eye to their presence just as long as the work was done on time and there wasn’t any trouble. Well, now there was trouble. Big trouble.

  Eventually she slept, only to awake in the dead of night. The moon hung like a teardrop above her. Dog whimpered. It was nice to have a dog, Squib thought, nice to have a –. Something made Squib sit upright. She scanned the shadows cast by the moon’s glow: cottage, vegetable garden, outdoor dunny. Nothing moved. The space lived in by her family was still. Then Dog stirred and gave a low growl and she spread herself flat against the trunk of their tree.

  ‘What is it?’ Squib whispered, taking hold of his back. Again the same long, low growl.

  Squib saw them then: a line of black fellas walking single file across the face of the paddock beyond. Their long, lean legs shone in the moonlight as they swished through the grass, faces turned towards a scrubby rise in the east. They carried shields and long hunting spears and walked westwards into darkness. Squib wanted to run after them, to ask where they were going, yet something held her to the earth. She finally gained the courage to take a step in their direction only to find a lone man waiting in the shad
ows near the creaking toilet door. He was dressed in white man’s clothes. He squatted in the dirt, his knees creaking.

  The hairs jumped to attention on Squib’s arms and she bit her lip, tasting blood on her tongue.

  ‘One day the land will call to you, little one, and you must listen.’

  Squib was sure her own eyes were as wide and as white as the man’s opposite. She twisted her arms behind her back. ‘Why?’

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘Because she needs to know we can still speak her language. When the people of the night sky come together in battle you will understand, for this will be the sign. This will herald the ending to the beginning of it all.’

  ‘New friend?’

  Squib picked at the sleep crusting her eyes. It was daylight. The men on walkabout were gone. Crawling into a sitting position she brushed dirt from her face and hair. It was then she noticed the heavily bandaged wrist. ‘His name’s Dog.’

  ‘Good choice. If I have a dog I’ll be sure to call him that. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for what you done with my wrist.’ He held it towards her, flexing the fingers. ‘It’s fixed and I’m off scrub cutting.’

  Squib took his hand, prodded at the bones. The dog nuzzled her arm. ‘It ain’t, you know.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘Well, if I stay, Evans will throw me off the place on account of not being able to work. Your father knows that. It was him that got me the work scrub-cutting.’ He gave her a wan smile. ‘Look out for the Boss Cocky. He probably won’t like your dog,’ he said.

  ‘Even if he’s my friend?’ Squib wondered how a man got such a stretched out nose.

  ‘Don’t make no difference.’

  Squib swatted at a black fly. ‘Suppose not if you’re a dog on a sheep place, but my father says if you’re a friend then you’re a friend for life.’

  ‘Maybe, I wouldn’t know. I ain’t never had one.’

  ‘Hey,’ Squib called after him, ‘you’ve got a friend now.’ He gave her a look like someone had just offered him two bob for nothing. Squib figured it for a smile. ‘Merry Christmas,’ she called after him. He answered with a wave.