Connor’s features tightened. ‘Careful who you call names, old man.’
Holder lifted his hands in a gesture of apology. ‘The Chinese do things differently than us. Some of their girls are sold to work as domestics and then returned to their family at marriageable age. In Maria’s case, there was no kin left and the Chinese in Darwin didn’t want her. They don’t take to a polluting of their kind. Anyway, Maria needed a good home and I can do the providing. Slavery’s got nothing to do with it.’
‘And if she doesn’t want you?’ reasoned Ross.
‘We were married by proxy,’ revealed Holder. ‘Now I’m sorry, but the time for talking is done. I’m taking the girl with me.’ He placed his hat on his head and tipped it briefly in a show of thanks for the hospitality extended. ‘I’ll wait outside. Ten minutes only, and then I’ll be coming in.’ And with that, he left.
‘You’ll have to let her go, Ross.’ Connor came to where Ross stood observing their unwanted guest through the shutters. The Irishman walked down the narrow dirt path to where his lone companion, an Aboriginal man, waited with their horses. ‘The business has been done,’ Connor continued.
‘A marriage by proxy isn’t legal,’ Ross insisted. ‘None of this is right.’
‘It has a fair stink about it,’ agreed Connor. ‘But what can you do? None of this sits straight with me. We’ve just accused the man of slavery and you’re offering to buy the girl from him.’
‘I’m buying her freedom. It’s not the same, Connor, and you know it. Maria should be allowed to make up her own mind.’
Connor pulled on a tuft of beard. ‘Aye, but the thing’s been done. An understanding was made between three people and you weren’t part of the negotiations. You must leave it at that, Ross. We’re in the middle of nowhere, where a man’s word means more than the law.’
Ross tried to determine what he should do next. Maria leaving was the last thing he wanted.
‘This isn’t any of our business. Best to let things alone.’ Connor glanced out the window. Holder was now cradling a rifle. ‘He’s armed.’
‘Maria!’ they heard Holder yell. ‘Maria, you’ve got ten minutes to fetch your things and get out here!’
Ross took his own rifle from where it leant in the corner of the room, sitting a box of shells on the table.
‘Cripes.’ Connor spun the barrel of his revolver, each bullet he loaded sliding home with a soft click. ‘I’m not dying over a girl of mixed blood, Ross, I tell you this now. I’ll defend you and me if it comes to it, but that’s it. There’s too much to lose if things go sour. You have too much to lose,’ he said pointedly.
Maria appeared dressed in trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, a tawny bag in one hand. ‘I don’t want to cause any trouble,’ she said, sitting the holdall on the table.
Ross looked from his friend to the girl and back again. ‘Connor, can you leave us alone please?’ He waited until Connor was standing guard at the front of the house and then Maria ran to his arms, burrowing into his chest as she clung to him, sobbing. Ross briefly closed his eyes.
‘You were right. I have to let you go with him,’ said Ross before she could speak. ‘I can’t risk a fight here on the property or the possibility of the authorities getting involved. That wouldn’t help either of us. Oh God, Maria. I’m sorry.’ He kissed her forehead and then gently freed her arms from about his waist. Although he detested the idea of her leaving with Holder, Ross wanted no trouble on Waybell.
‘If you let him take me, you’ll never get me back.’
He took her roughly by the arms. ‘I will come for you.’
She shook her head. ‘If we’d been together as a man and a woman should, if I’d let you … forgive me, Ross. I didn’t know what I should do.’
Wordlessly, Ross allowed her to draw him through Sowden’s old space, which was now a study, and into his bedroom. Once inside she closed the door.
‘Don’t forget me, Ross.’
She stepped away from him and slowly began to remove her clothes. Ross couldn’t draw his eyes away. He understood that a great journey had been unfolding, one that, over the past months, had taken him away from a respectable existence to this new situation of blurred lines and impossible boundaries. He’d travelled from a point of knowing right from wrong to this very moment, a place so filled with necessity that all he could do was stare at recesses and curves only previously imagined.
She pressed her body against his. Chest, stomach and thighs resting and hollowing out.
Ross ran his fingers down the length of her spine, feeling the taut bone of the woman he loved. Maria undid his shirt. Splayed fingers on his body. He fumbled with his pants, pressing her backwards until her body hit the wall. He lifted one of her legs and then the other, bracing a palm on the wooden boards. Ross felt her tongue, the slickness of her mouth. It was as if all the oxygen was being sucked from the room.
He didn’t want to go to the edge where Maria drew him. Not yet. There was a darkness waiting there. A chasm of wonder that once breached would stay with him forever. It would be like water and he would have to keep drinking it to survive. Ross held on for just a little longer, until the clifftop came into view, then he allowed himself to fall.
They stayed tangled. Arms wrapping waists. Stomachs resting together in one breath. Their bodies glassy with sweat. A small scar showed on her breast and he bent lower to suck damp skin. Her back arched.
‘Enough,’ he whispered. Lifting Maria free of his body, Ross had the distinct feeling of having travelled too far to get to this shared moment. He cupped her face with his hands. ‘I will get you back from him, Maria.’
He waited naked on the edge of the bed as she dressed. The room smelt of briny days spent at the seashore when he was a child. Ross imagined the sweaty salt of their wanderings etched into the timber wall.
Maria stepped into trousers. Fastened buttons. Tidied moist hair.
‘I miss you already,’ she finally said, patting her face with a shirt-tail, which she then tucked into the waistband. Ross went to her side and kissed her, their palms sliding briefly together.
‘I’ll wait for you to come for me,’ said Maria. Then she was gone.
Only when she’d left to join Holder did Ross gather up his clothes, trying to remember the person he’d been before today. Before he’d made love to Maria and truly become a man. Through the window he saw Holder hoist Maria up onto the back of his horse. Then the riders left, the dust lifting beneath the horse’s hoofs. The road emptying into the fringe of trees.
The void of the bedroom was absolute. Ross no longer cared about anything. He only thought of what it meant to finally have Maria, and he wanted her back. No matter the cost.
He found Connor and they made their way to the storeroom, where Ross found the rum delivered for the start of the wet season. Connor held out a mug and Ross poured for them both.
‘It’s for the best, mate,’ said Connor. ‘I know you were keen on her, but it could never have worked. Not the way things are. You know that.’
But Ross wasn’t listening. He was forming a new plan.
Six miles or so, that was the limit of travelling available until the sun set. Holder would want to make camp before dark. Four miles then, Ross calculated, before they stopped moving. A distance easily reached in the dark. People talked about the Northern Territory being a law unto itself. Holder was still on Ross’s property and Ross had his own laws too. He skolled the rum.
‘More?’ asked Connor.
‘No,’ answered Ross.
They sat on the steps of the homestead, listening to the children playing on the edge of the billabong, clouds shading the horizon.
He couldn’t let Maria go.
Chapter 34
It wasn’t difficult to track them. For once the moon was high and bright, unobscured by cloud, and the camp was well illuminated. They’d travelled further than Ross had expected, Holder choosing to ride to the other side of the creek and another five miles onwards. It was
a good spot to rest. The area was ringed by timber and the ground was soft, the type of soil that welcomed a swag.
Ross crept behind a tree and waited. The Irishman was snoring, a thin arm flung across Maria. A few smoking coals remained of the fire. A hunk of half-eaten meat was impaled on a branch that rested between forked sticks above the dying heat. Only Holder’s travel companion was missing. Ross flattened against a gnarly tree trunk. There was no other swag near the fire and he concluded that the other man was camped with the horses, which were tethered close by. Holder would have demanded privacy. Ross swallowed bile at the thought.
He didn’t want any trouble. He’d not come for a fight. But if pressed, Ross was prepared to do what was necessary to get Maria back. Whatever happened next was up to Holder. The law, the real law that came from books and that was regulated by learned men, didn’t stand for slavery. If Holder needed to be tied up and personally escorted back to Darwin on the train to be handed over to the police, Ross would do it. But first he’d enforce his own rules. That of an owner, for, at the very least, Holder was trespassing on his land.
Eventually, when enough time had passed to suggest Holder’s male companion was also asleep a little way off, Ross crept the short space to where the white man lay snoring. In the glow from the fire Ross could see that Maria had opened her eyes, and he pressed a finger to his lips as she held his gaze. He hated the sight of Holder’s possessive arm slung over her body, the slackness of the man’s fingers resting on the ground so close to Maria’s face. Holder’s weapon lay discarded in the dirt and Ross carried it to the safety of the trees. He concealed it, before sliding the bolt across on his rifle and walking quietly back to where Holder slept and Maria waited.
‘No good sneaking about here, mate,’ a voice behind him said softly. ‘Blackfella’s always better at such things.’ The man snatched Ross’s weapon, jabbing him in the back with a rifle. ‘You make more noise than an old man.’
‘You’d know,’ sneered Ross. ‘You work for one.’
‘Hey, Boss,’ called the man.
Holder sprung upright in his swag. Pushing Maria out of the way, he reached for the rifle, which wasn’t there. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I’ve come for Maria. You’re welcome to follow us back to the homestead. Then in the morning we’ll sit down and discuss things properly,’ said Ross in as friendly a tone as he could.
Holder squinted. ‘Haven’t I just sat down with you, Grant, and come to an understanding? At least, that’s what I thought.’
‘I made a mistake in letting you leave. Waybell is my property and as you’re on my land I’m expecting you to adhere to my law. White man’s law, which prohibits slavery. Not the oriental version, that suits a man desperate for a wife.’
Holder pushed Maria down when she attempted to stand so that she was crouching at his feet. ‘Let’s not talk about who’s desperate, eh?’
‘This predicament can be easily solved if we discuss it like gentlemen and ask Maria what she wants. You said your arrangement wasn’t slavery. Well, here’s your chance to prove it.’
‘I don’t need to prove nothing to you,’ spat Holder.
‘The law says you do. A magistrate in Darwin will soon sort this out,’ said Ross.
‘We’re not in some fancy club in Adelaide now, boy. And there’s no rich father to lend assistance. I’d spit on you if the illness hadn’t robbed me of my curd. There aren’t enough white feathers in the Top End for a coward like you. My boy lies dead and you waltz up here trying to make amends for your shoddy past and talk to me about gentlemen. Hogtie him onto his horse, Jimmy, and send him back to the little Scotsman. I ain’t got time for this.’
‘C’mon now, Mister,’ said Jimmy. ‘We don’t want no trouble.’
‘That’s right,’ confirmed Holder. He patted Maria on the head. ‘I’m trying to catch up with my wife.’
‘Leave her alone!’ Ross yelled. Maria had the look of a scared animal, a rabbit readying to burrow.
‘No,’ replied Holder. He reached down and lifted Maria up, wrapping an arm about her shoulders. ‘I have a husband’s right and by God I’ll not have the likes of you telling me otherwise.’
Without further thought Ross swung around, punching the Aboriginal man in the face with full force. Snatching up the rifle from the stunned Jimmy, he threw it into the shadows before rushing at Holder. They fell to the ground, scrabbling in the dirt. Ross yelled out as the Irishman bit him on the ear. They rolled over and Ross broke free, retaliating with a punch to Holder’s head. The older man proved faster than Ross had anticipated. He drew a knife and smiled.
‘Is that it, boy? A bit of a scuff and a yelp and you’re done? Come on,’ Holder provoked him. ‘I never had a problem drawing a bit of blood, and if I have to stick you to make you realise the way things work out here I will.’
A whack struck Ross in the ribs he’d injured during the muster. He gasped for breath as he landed hard on his back.
‘What did you do that for, Jimmy?’ asked Holder.
‘No good, Boss. No more fighting,’ said Jimmy.
‘Be damned,’ Holder replied. ‘Do you really think this will be the last we hear from him if I don’t give him a sorting out? He’s had a whiff of the girl, if what he told me is true, and I’ll not leave here without him knowing that he’s on the losing side.’
Ross rolled out of the way as Holder readied to kick him in his damaged side. But it was Maria who attacked, striking Holder in the back of the knee so that he crumpled to the ground, dropping the knife. She picked it up and stuck him in the thigh and then backed away, blood glistening.
‘Maria!’ called Ross.
But before he could stand, Jimmy lifted a rifle butt and hit him in the head.
When Ross woke he was upside down, his body hanging uselessly. In the darkness he heard the squeak of leather, smelt horse hair and saddle grease. Blood pounded in his head and through the thumping he realised he’d been flung across a horse, his wrists and ankles trussed together and connected by a rope strung under the animal’s belly. With every step the ache in his ribs pressed on his lungs. His head flapped pathetically back and forth. There was pain there as well. The type of soreness that suggested serious harm. But there was little point in calling out. It was better to wait and see where he ended up, to pretend he was unconscious so that he could attempt an escape when he was finally set upright on the ground.
The horse moved steadily onwards and Ross came to realise that he couldn’t hear any voices. Theirs was a silent procession of injured men and a heart-wounded woman travelling along a night track where the crunch of leaves and the flurry of evening creatures became a chorus of sorts to the methodical gait of the horses.
They finally slowed down, and Ross recognised Jimmy’s voice calling for help. Ross readied for freedom, hoping for any opportunity to escape. If he got away, he could return later for Maria.
‘What on earth?’
Ross recognised Connor’s voice.
‘They got into a fight,’ explained Jimmy.
Ross felt a hand on his back and heard the cutting of rope, each twine unravelling as the blade sliced through it. Connor dragged him from the horse’s back and sat him on the ground as his feet and wrists were freed. Ross fell back into the dirt, his head swirling unsteadily. There were people gathering. He recognised Parker and Eustace as they gave orders. Jimmy was asking for help for his Boss.
Connor raised Ross from the ground and half-dragged him into the house. Once inside, he helped Ross into bed, then lit a candle and a lantern.
‘Of all the daft-brained things, Ross. You went after Holder?’ asked Connor.
‘Maria,’ he replied. ‘I went after her. Maria stabbed Holder.’
Ross noticed Mick standing in the doorway.
‘He’ll be all right,’ said Mick. ‘Only a flesh wound. We’ll bandage Holder up and get Jimmy to take him home at first light.’
‘And Maria?’
‘She’
s not injured, if that’s what you mean,’ said Connor.
‘Keep her safe,’ muttered Ross.
‘Aye, that I’ll do,’ answered Connor. ‘But if she’s the one doing the stabbing I think she can look after herself.’
Chapter 35
Ross was sitting up in bed, examining the bandage around his chest and probing the dressing on his head. Annie slapped his hands away and forced another mouthful of stringy soup into his mouth.
‘I can feed myself,’ he complained.
‘All night you lie here like baby and now you wake and cry like one.’
‘Annie, can you leave me alone please?’
‘You big Boss man. Know everything. But sickness you don’t know.’ She pushed the spoon into his mouth once more, the metal hitting his teeth. ‘You lucky you’re not deep in the ground with the worms chewing at you. Only because of this.’ She pinched his bicep. ‘Not this.’ She tapped his forehead. ‘That and Annie. Annie keep you good and strong. I tell you stories and you wake up. You listen to the frogs at night and they call as well. Time to wake up, Mr Ross. No time to be worrying about that girl. She’s no place for a whitefella like you.’
‘Annie,’ said Ross.
She snatched the bowl from him and left the room. Ross leant back, the boards hard on his skull. A dry cough, which irritated Ross’s throat and tore anew at his injuries, struck as Connor entered the room. When the paroxysm finally ended, he clutched at his ribs. The house was quiet. He knew Annie had patched up Holder, and that he and Jimmy had left days ago. As for Maria, he could only vaguely recall her sitting at his bedside, clasping his hand.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked Connor, drawing Annie’s chair closer to the bed.
‘Like I’ve been dragged behind a horse at the gallop,’ replied Ross. ‘What day is it?’
‘Saturday. Nearly ten days since your little escapade. I’d not be surprised if that thick skull of yours wasn’t cracked through. It was a fair belting.’
‘Where’s Maria?’ asked Ross.
Stone Country Page 21
