Daughter of Australia (38 page)

Ghan hurried over to the truck, pounded on the thin metal hood. “This yer truck?”

“Boss's,” the young black man said dryly, peeking from his hat. “Boss drunk at the pub.”

“Yeh drive this thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Want t'earn a few bucks?”

The man dragged his feet in and rested his folded arms on the dashboard.

Ghan continued quickly, “Yeh know Wanjarri Downs?”

“Yeah, know it. Got family there.”

“How long it take yeh t'get there?”

“If I speedin'? Three, four hours.”

“Need yeh to deliver a message to Mr. 'Arrington. It's urgent.”

The man laughed, his white teeth stretching the length of his mouth. “Who gonna listen to an Abo, boss?”

He was right. “Hold up.” Ghan dug through a pile of trash rotting near the co-op and found an oily paper bag, ripped off a rectangle. “Yeh got anything to write wiv in there?”

The man searched the floor and pulled up a pencil. Ghan handed him the paper. “Write this down.”

The white teeth glistened and he handed the paper back. “Don't write nothin' but an
X
.”

Ghan stared at the paper. He put it on the hood and tried to hold the pencil, fumbled it between his fingers, then finally grasped it in his fist. He set the lead down and closed his eyes, tried to remember a word as a picture in his illiterate head. Sweat poured off his nose and spotted the paper. He cursed. He looked down past the station and his eyes settled on the Hotel Imperial and its bold letters vertical on the side. He knew its name. Sounded it out in his head, moved his tongue in his mouth with the sound, rolled each letter. The first was shorter and must be “Hotel.”

Ghan flattened the paper and with stuttering wrist copied the word
HOTEL
in big letters on the paper. “Hotel”—the first word he had ever written, no better than a three-year-old. He looked at the heavy print with anger and shame and sadness. He drew a big
X
over the word. It was all he could do. He handed the paper to the Aborigine. “Mr. 'Arrington gets this, yeh hear me?”

“Whot if he don't want it?”

“Then give it to any white man there. Tell him not to let Mr. 'Arrington leave. Orright?”

“Sure, boss.” The man smiled and folded the note, put it in his pocket. He held out his hand. Ghan gave him a few bills and the man's eyes grew wide. He started the truck with a roar.

Ghan pounded the hood. “When yeh get back 'ere, don't say a word, got it?”

He smiled his white teeth again. “Who gonna listen to an Abo, eh, boss?”

The car rolled away down the street, the black man's thin body bouncing with each jolt. He watched him go without relief, only resignation. Ghan had done all he could.

Ghan headed for his camp, tried not to look at the rows of tents that would probably be burned by nightfall. He stumbled with throbbing head under his canvas, pulled at the wood post that kept it straight, but then stopped. If he took the tent down, news would run through the camp like sewage that he was packing up. He gritted his teeth. He'd have nothing—no money, no tent. Ghan packed up what he could and stuffed it in his shirt. He left the hovel, looked behind him one last time and scurried toward the trees as fast as his peg could move.

J
ames ran after the shearing truck and waved at the driver to stop. When the truck slowed, he climbed on the rear bumper and pushed in the bales of wool that were sliding out. He retied the rope and jumped back to the ground. “Load nearly toppled out,” he said to the driver, then smacked the door. “You're good now.” The man tipped his hat and drove off, the load swaying like a dancing rump.

An old ute carried a trail of dust from the other side of the road, turned too fast into the drive, lifting half the wheels off the ground, then settled with an angry bang. The truck parked in front of the house and a lean Aborigine sauntered out, his hat so low that only his chin showed. He climbed the stairs to the big house and knocked on the door. Meredith came to the window, peered out with a grimace and disappeared behind the curtain, closing it tight. The Aborigine waited for several minutes, then laughed, retraced his footprints lazily.

Tom wiped the sweat from his forehead, still panted from loading the bales. “What you think he wants?”

“Maybe a bite.” James frowned. “Cook didn't even open the door for the bloke.”

The black man went back to the car. “Something I can get for you?” James shouted.

The man flashed him a full set of white teeth. “Lookin' fer Mr. 'Arrington.”

“Left this morning.”

The man's smile faded. “Too bad. Had a message fer 'im.” He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a rumpled piece of brown paper, handed it to James.

The lead had smeared on the oily paper, but he saw the word, saw the pressure of the
X
that had ripped holes. “Who gave this to you?”

“White fella. Told me t'tell Mr. 'Arrington not t'come.” The man watched James's face carefully and the black lines lost their silliness. “There's trouble in Coolgardie. Tonight. Everybody steamin'. Everybody lookin' t'fight.” His eyes were full then and deep and held James with a steady urgency. He pointed a finger at the paper and shook his head. “Trouble. Gonna get ugly. Men gonna strike. Riot.”

James thought of the car that left this morning. Alex had the suitcases. Leonora sat on the passenger side, her head down. He hadn't looked at them further. He couldn't look at them together without feeling sick. The Aborigine was watching him and James balled up the paper, balled up the image of Alex and Leonora.

“You want to rest in the shade for a bit?” James asked. “Can give you some tucker for the ride.” He spoke as he would to a white man and the Aborigine relaxed.

“Naw. Gotta get back 'fore the boss wakes up. Drag his arse out 'fore the trouble starts.”

James nodded and the man drove away, his body bouncing in the seat of the lurching, burping old truck.

Tom walked over. “What was that all about?”

“Said there's going to be trouble in Coolgardie.” James clenched the crumpled paper in his palm, squeezed it until it was small as a pea. “A strike. Came to tell Alex to stay away.”

Tom scoffed, “Och. Sounds like a ghost story to me. Somebody tryin' to spook him!” Tom smirked then. “Second thought, serve the cocky bastard right to find a little trouble.”

“Leonora's with him.” The words sounded like a memory.

“You buyin' it?” Tom paused, didn't get an answer.

“Got a bad feeling about it, Tom. Something in that bloke's eyes. Can't explain it.”

“I can.” Tom smirked. “You miss your girlfriend.” He held his rib with the joke, stretched his arm up to untighten it. “Orright,” he conceded. “Won't hurt to check it out. Hell, haven't been to town in months, maybe we can get a good meal out of it.”

 

Tom's lips tired with songless whistling as he and James sped through hours on the straight road to Coolgardie. They passed the hacked forest, the dots of stumps appearing black as holes in the falling twilight. The tires followed the embedded wheel ruts of the road and James fought with the steering to keep the car in steady alignment. He flicked on the headlights, a pale light fighting against the gray and sharpening with approaching night. Tom's bottom slid back on the seat and his back straightened. “You smell that?”

“Something's burning. Look.” James pointed. In the gray-blue of falling dark rose the matching thin lines of smoke.

“Christ.”

James pressed on the gas and ground the wheels faster. Tom rubbed his forehead. “We got t'think here, James. Orright? We can't just throw ourselves into this thing.”

“She's in there, Tom.”

“I know.” His breath came quick and he moved closer to the edge of the seat. “I know, but we got t'think here or we're gonna get ourselves killed.”

The smoke from Coolgardie grew and blossomed in a venomous cloud. From the east another sky illuminated in red with a glowing swell and then the smoke followed, rougher this time as it competed with the flames. “Aw, Christ. This is bad.”

The car rose up a ridge, brought the first distant view of a lit Coolgardie. Smoke poured and fought with billowy black limbs to crawl higher and higher into the night. Red flames licked at yellow sparks and the town haloed orange in spots. Tom tried to speak, but his lips moved uselessly. He swallowed, then tried again, “It's all over the place. They don't know which direction they're going.”

“Yes, they do.” James's voice came hard and deep. “They're circling.”

The car churned toward the heated valley. “Remember where the hotel was?” James asked shortly.

“Yeah. To the left of the depot.”

“We're going to head out behind the tracks and leave the car, round up by the depot and see if we can get into the hotel.”

In town, the smoke joined and thickened. The headlights struggled to cut through the swirling black. The car flew off the main road onto a horse route and clattered blindly to the tracks. The tires hit a steel line of track, pushed over it. They left the car and pulled their shirts up over their noses, ran toward the buildings spotted with fire. Ears throbbed with the shrill bells of the fire trucks. Breaking glass popped to the hard ground. Men shouted; voices echoed.

James and Tom slunk through a long alley perpendicular to the main street. A fire truck stood lifeless, its hose hacked to pieces, the ladder lying in splinters. They pressed backs against a brick wall and waited as a mob of men, a faceless and crawling beast, rushed down the main road toward the hotel. A man broke from the group like a snapped thread, smashed a wood beam studded with nails into the tires of a dead car, beat the ground until the wood snapped. The air reeked of spilled oil and kerosene. James grabbed Tom's shirt and pointed to the far wing of the hotel. “We go in the side window.”

One quick breath and then they ran at the hotel, the fourth tier already awash with flames. The back window was smashed and they climbed over the shards of razored glass into the dark and smoky lobby. A few strays of the mob saw the figures and rushed the window, swinging sticks at any moving body. A hit landed to Tom's lower back and left him stumbling. James and two other men caught who they could and sent them flying through the cut window. New pounding erupted from the front doors while men barricaded the entrance.

In a flash, they were spun and separated by the panicked patrons. “Tom!” James shouted, but his voice was lost. A flame shot from the bar and small explosions followed as the bottles of alcohol erupted. In the flash of light, terror streaked faces, women screamed and men barked orders. James scanned the room between the intermittent illumination and searched for her face. And there was Alex—bobbing under the shooting glass, holding collars and shouting into men's ears. James plowed through the people and grabbed his arm. “Alex!”

Alex looked up, bewildered.

“Where's Leo?” James screamed.

Through the chaos, Alex paused, cocked his head, and James wanted to strangle him. “Where's your
wife,
goddammit!”

Alex's face twitched as if slapped, turned tortured. “I can't find her! She wasn't with me when the fire broke out.” He grabbed James, frantic as a drowning man. “You've got to find her! So help me, I'll never forgive myself if anything's happened to her!”

“What floor were you on?”
Please don't be the fourth.

“Second! The whole floor is covered in smoke.”

“All right.” James scanned the room again, rose up slightly. “Listen, Tom's here, too. Somewhere.”

 

The street erupted with hand-cranked sirens; a gunshot cracked in the distance. Leonora covered her mouth with a wet towel as the black smoke pillowed under the door. She tried to stay calm, tried to think straight above the terror. She didn't understand what was happening. One minute she was dressing for dinner, and the next the whole city turned into a war zone. Adrenaline sped her thoughts, made her muscles tight. She fought the urge to curl in the corner, fought the urge to scream for help. No one would hear her.
Think, Leonora.
She had to keep her mouth closed, keep the smoke from filling her chest.
Think.

There was too much smoke in the hallway; she'd have to escape through the window. Holding her breath against the rising poison, she pushed at the windowpane. Her hands slipped with the exertion. She tried again, harder, her nails breaking with the strained grip. A panicked sob left her throat, but she swallowed it. She couldn't lose it. She had to think. She had to breathe carefully or she'd choke. Her fingers scanned the windowpane. There were nails in the corner.
No.
The window was nailed shut. She searched the growing and swirling darkness for something to break the window.
Nothing.
She beat against the glass with her fists.
No!
The smoke entered her mouth too quickly and she bent with hacking. She found her dropped towel and breathed into the wet fabric.

A woman screamed. A window smashed above or below or all around, the noise coming from every direction. Leonora coughed into the towel, held her ears against the chaos. Her lungs burned. She could die in this room or take her chances with the smoke in the hallway. She mapped out the exit in her mind, would run until it was clear or she collapsed; either way, she couldn't stay here.

Men's voices rang in the hallway.
Thank God!
They would help her. She was getting dizzy, her gait jagged. They could help her get out. Her eyes stung; her lungs gasped for fresh air.
They'll help me.
She staggered to the door....

 

Alex peeked above shoulders. “The police are here, thank God.” The trapped heat was enormous. Perspiration beaded Alex's face, made it look wet with tears as he yelled at James, “If you find Leonora, take her away. Get her out of here, you hear me!” Another bottle exploded above their heads and they crouched lower. Alex slit his eyes. “Just find her.”

James weaved through the bodies until he found the wide stairs, the top ones nearly invisible with smoke. He plowed to the second floor and hid his mouth in his shirt. The smoke burned at his eyes and he choked into the fabric. A large window was still intact in the hallway and the light from the fires cut a sliver of vision through the choking haze.

“Leo!” he hollered above the sirens. James coughed for oxygen and called out again, “Leo!” His voice grew hoarse and raw, the word inaudible now below the coughing. He stumbled across the empty hall, his eyes clouded and watering. He felt along the wall, the smoke slowing him down, his lungs shrinking.

“Leave her!” a voice spit in the darkness. “Police comin'!”

“Ain't goin' till I get whot I came fer!” A rough cough hacked. “Jist need to get 'er fuckin' skirt off. . . .”

A cold hand wrapped around James's heart, squeezed. His hand dropped from his nose. The fire, the smoke, disappeared. Blind, he charged the hall.

“Fuck!” A man fled into the smoke. Another gray face looked up from the floor, startled but fierce, his hand inching up a woman's dress.

James kicked him square under the chin, the thrust of the boot knocking the man flat. Curling to his side, the man tried to rise. James didn't wait, kicked hard into the ribs so the slumped figure rolled into the black. Now the breath came too fast to James's lungs and the smoke filled, left him dizzy and clutching for the wall. A dull dragging sound slid up the hall. James tried to follow the men, but his chest convulsed. He pulled his shirt over his mouth, sank to his knees, slid his hands along the floor until he found the woman's limp leg, his fingertips climbing up her body to her face.

“Leo!” James pulled the wilted body from the space and shook the shoulders. “
Leo!
”

James grabbed her around the waist and slung his arms under her knees, pressed her to his chest. Her head bounced against his shoulder as he carried her blindly down the steps. He coughed fiercely into his shoulder and slid against the railing. Police were shouting, people were screaming and running out the front lobby, but flames licked half the door. James turned away from the crowd and pushed through a black hall to a wooden locked door, beat it with his shoulder until the hinge cracked, then kicked it open.

The new air smacked him in the face. In the alley, James dropped to his knees, leaned his cheek against her mouth, felt no breath. He pressed his lips against hers, breathed from every pore into her lungs, fought against his own coughing until he had to pull back. Her head flopped to the side, hung over his fingertips.

He ripped the top of her dress, slid her necklace out of the way, dropped her head back and arched her spine. His eyes held to the white stone, focused on it as he filled his lungs with fresh oxygen, then pressed his mouth to hers. Years of loss washed over him, each wave a face, a memory. He blew quicker, harder.
No more.
“No more!” he ordered, begged between breaths.