The Roving Party (11 page)

T
HE ASSIGNEES WERE POSITIONED AROUND A
stewpot gurgling on the fire and one by one William Gould dipped their bowls into the mess of meat and dumplings. The stew steamed as they shovelled with spoons carved from sheep’s ribs. As they ate those five faces remained fixed upon John Batman. He was heading across from the store shed and he had on his shoulder a firkin of rum which he eased down among the assignees. He produced a wooden bungstarter and tapped it open and the earthy black liquid inside fumed as he breathed deeply of it.

Horsehead chewed his mutton gristle. Seems Mr. Batman here means to do us a good turn, he said.

Fill your mugs and that’ll do.

I’m partial to a good turn. Specially one what involves a finger or two of Indian.

I always reward obedience when I sees it, Clarke. To have such simple minds toiling away at my own bidding is the highest good.

The men filed past the little barrel and plunged their pannikins in and brought them out dripping.

Might I temper it with a dash of water? Gould said. Only me guts take poorly to rum, you see.

I dont much care if you suck it through your ringhole, Gould. But there’ll be no singing and no rowdiness. I got three littluns asleep up there. I got a baby. None of it, you hear me?

At mention of the girls there came a whispering between the men. Who it was, what was said, was lost the moment Batman turned around. But as he met those eyes and the wattle bark of their weathered faces they smirked and looked about. He hammered the firkin closed. Shouldered it. He carried it as far as the campsite the blacks had made themselves before setting it down. The Parramatta men sucked on the last of their meat while John Batman tapped open the casket and filled their mugs as well. Pigeon tossed bones on the fire and wiped his hands on his stringy hair. He raised to his lips the mug of rum and drew on it.

You wake me. Anything happens. Batman pointed at them with the mallet.

Crook grinned. He held up his mug.

I watch em, said Pigeon. Old man Crook, he bloody sleep I reckon.

Batman stood there in the firelight gazing down at the assignees, grouped there in the shade of the moon and
the fire’s fluid light. Then he carried the firkin back to the farmhouse.

Bill and his woman crossed the paddocks under an icecoloured moon, surrounded by ewes aglow in the moon sheen. Broad and unshorn, the ewes stared like imbeciles as the pair topped the chock and log and continued on their way, the mud sucking at his boots, at Katherine’s bare feet. They pushed on to where the forest rose sheer from the earth in a gloom of pillars and they told direction by the moon while hundreds of feet overhead the possums squabbled for territory. In good time they came to the clearing, cut and burned from the bush, and to the bark humpy they’d raised together in readying for the birth of their son. They moved between the grey stumps and the halfcut saw logs. Bill dragged the door open, still holding his wife’s hand. Once inside she knelt at the hearth and kindled a meagre fire of sticks and dry gum leaves. As the flames grew she unlaced the boots from Bill’s feet and set them beside the fire to dry. They ate cold stew without bread and drank their share of Batman’s rum in hot sugared water and the firelight cast shadows up behind them on the wall, caricatures of those dark and soundless shapes slumped before the flames.

Gould yanked back his blanket. Pigeon at first continued to sleep, lost deep in liquor as he was, and he heard nothing of what was yelled. So Gould shook him and again called his name and Pigeon stirred and suddenly was awake.

The girl, he said haltingly. They want the girl.

Pigeon could hear raised voices and the ringing of metal in the distance. He stood up to better make out these goings-on.

You’ll help, wont you? said Gould.

But Pigeon was already gone up the slope towards the store shed.

The assignees had an axe from somewhere. One of their number swung it against the door, burying it into the palings. Then he staggered back among his fellows, who caught hold of his arms and righted him, and he shook them off as if they were so many maidservants fussing about his person. He had tugged the axe handle free of the woodwork and come about to take a fresh swing at the door when Pigeon called out, Hey you buggers.

They all turned to face him. It was Horsehead gripping the axe and he jabbed the head at Pigeon. He was unsteady on his feet as the axe head waved before him.

Here, he said, you have a go, darkie. Horsehead made to pass the handle across to him.

Piss off you buggers piss off.

Swaying like sailors, the men watched him. Horsehead laughed. He seemed about to say something to the others and his
mouth parted, but before a word was unloosed a weapon fired somewhere off in the night. Horsehead clutched his chest and doubled over, crying out, and sat down on the dirt. Gumm and Baxter and the boy broke towards the darkness of the fields. Pigeon watched them, unsure precisely what had taken place. He scratched at his chin and looked around. Standing shadowed before the faint light from the farmhouse was John Batman. Pigeon stepped promptly aside as he approached and Batman slid the packing rod out of his fowler, tamped down a fresh wad and raised the gun up to his eye.

I’m shot, said Horsehead and tried to stand up.

But Batman was over him and he discharged squarely between his shoulderblades. The miscreant crumpled headlong onto the mud. The others were bolting out across the fields in the blackness and Batman unstoppered his powder horn with his teeth, dosed up the weapon and squinted into the night.

You see em out there anywheres? he said around the cork.

But Pigeon was staring down at Horsehead where he lay groaning and twisting on the ground like a man gripped by a palsy and did not answer.

You see em or not? Batman said again.

This fella got no blood on him.

Acourse not.

Horsehead rolled over. I’m bloody shot, he moaned.

From his shirt pocket Batman pulled a handful of ball and fed it down the muzzle. That’s one there, he said.

He took a few strides into the night then fired. The flash bloom lit the field and Jimmy Gumm was seen in that frieze shambling across the grass, his face stamped with the blood-fear that had seized hold of him.

Yelled Batman: What did I tell you bastards?

We never touched her, we never, I swear.

Come here where I can see you.

Darnt shoot, please darnt shoot.

Come here.

Murder, murder!

By Christ there’ll be more than that.

A torrid wind blew up the valley and snatched at the smoke coiling from Batman’s piece. He listened to the shrieks swirling, then turned on his heel and started back towards the farmhouse where Eliza watched from the verandah, shawled in a blanket, holding aloft a candle lamp. As he passed Pigeon he handed the gun over to him and strung the powder horn around his neck. He fished more of the ball out of his shirt and placed it in Pigeon’s open palm.

Givem a bit more if you fancy it.

Pigeon looked down at the little dried pepperberries which Batman had been shooting. Pitted, hard and aromatic, the sort used often enough in stews or bakes. When he looked up Batman was already disappearing inside the doorway and the windows dimmed as he carried the light into the bedroom.

H
ARD UPON FIVE IN THE MORNING
John Batman emerged onto the verandah, in his hands a mug of tea. He gazed out across the pale frosted expanse of paddock to the mountain beyond. Gould had risen early too. He had taken out the mare and harnessed her to the cart and they stood together, beast and man, while he fed her oats from his pocket and whispered in her twitching ear. Batman sipped his tea and waited for the sun to fully show itself. Then he set down his mug, stepped off the verandah and walked across the frost to the store shed to unlock the door. He put his head into the darkness. Nothing, no movement. So he vanished inside. Roosters called out for the dawn somewhere across the way in long strangled howls. When he reappeared he was hauling the black girl over the dirt by her ankle.

He stood looking down upon her and soon Gould joined him. She squinted into the sun rising above the horizon, her eyes a pair of the darkest marbles inlaid under her smooth
wide forehead. She watched them but if she understood her fate she made no sign of it. The child blundered forth out of the shed and into the keen winter air and clutched its mother. John Batman caught it up by the straps of the pinny it was dressed in and slung it across his shoulder. The girl grunted at her bindings. As he paced back to the farmhouse she began to call. It might have been the child’s name or it might have been cries for her own calamitous misfortune but they were words Batman had never heard spoken before that moment. Heedless, he carried her child inside the farmhouse and was gone.

The girl arched her back and her throat drew taut as she screamed. The hunting dogs roped at the farmhouse were set off baying along with her. She screamed until Gould struck her cleanly across the jaw. Blood ran from her lips where one of her teeth had come clean through the skin. She moved her head around to look up so he hit her again then stood back rubbing his bruised hand. The girl made no more sound after that. Her head lolled as he dragged her to the cart and dumped her onto the flatbed. The full risen sun spread gold streams around the cloud banks and over the roof of the scrublands; it cast light on one half of the girl’s broken face but left the other melded in shadows. Gould’s knuckle ached and he felt the joint, the sharp pain that followed meaning it was likely fractured. He kicked at the cold wet earth in frustration. There was nothing to be done for it so he climbed the bench and
called the horse onwards along the road that led to Campbell Town and the lockup where she would be delivered.

Late in the afternoon of the roving party’s third day at Kingston Gould returned. He jockeyed the cart over the shallow rise at a canter with the wheels raising arcs of mud and the hoofbeat like regimental drumming. Barely had the cart stopped before he dismounted and left the lathered horse steaming in the air. He climbed the verandah and hammered on the farmhouse door. It was swung to by a girl whose hair was bundled up in a ribbon as vivid green as the forest.

I’ve urgent need of your father. Is he inside?

The girl shook her head and pointed away over the brown pastures to a fire front burning slowly across it. Down there.

Inside, a haze deepened and filled out the shadows where Eliza sat with a pipe in her fingers and her feet propped on a deepbacked lambing chair. You find that big blathering skite, William, you tell him he haster come feed this boy. I’ll be damned if I’m fer doin it.

A black child appeared next to the girl and brought his face up to study Gould, a face curved and smoothed like his mother’s.

Da’s callin him Ben, said the girl. She shoved him. The boy tumbled over and lay sprawled until he found his bearings and
then he was up and about, none the worse for it. So the green-ribboned girl shoved him again and knocked him flat. But even that seemed not to upset him. He went off about whatever business he had among those Christians, away towards some darker corner of the room. Eliza chuffed on her pipe and paid him no mind as the smoke veiled her features.

Black Bill and the Dharugs walked behind the burn as it smoked across the pasture, roused along by the breeze. The damp kerchiefs bound over their faces were blackened about the mouth holes and lent them the look of bushrangers. Where the flames sputtered they touched off the dry grass again with the long brands they carried for the purpose and the flame fizzed through the bracken and saplings. All manner of thing came equally under that heat, the native fowl and badgers, the lizards. A snake still a-smoulder twisted among the blackened smoking grass where the men walked barefoot. They had burned from the leeward edge in the tribal manner, and those lanky men appeared as they must have on the endless never-never of their birth country, steeped in smoke and song and common purpose, remaking the place to their ends. On the windward side the assignees were ranged along the hard forest border and as the fire neared they beat the flames with boughs of green gum leaves so that the wooded
belts between the fields might be preserved. They brought the boughs overhead then down and cinders rose and died on spectral updrafts. Soon they were dusted grey with ash.

John Batman stood by, sucking on a bottle of rum and water and admiring the violence of the burn as the smoke blanked out the sun. Behind the fire front the field lay charred and a shape came looming through the cloud. Batman rubbed the tears from his eyes and removed the handkerchief covering his mouth. It was Gould, dashing closer on his awkward bandy legs. He ran until he was in shouting distance. The heat had him sweating in runnels down his shirt. He leaned on his knees and heaved.

What is it has you bolting like a whipped whore?

More of em sighted, Gould said. Down Swanport way. A hundred or more I’m told.

John Batman squinted through the wash of smoke. Who says this then?

By now Gould had gone down on his haunches and he loosened his collar, breathing hard. He waved a soggy crinkled twist of paper at Batman.

Batman unfurled it and read. Then he raised his head. You brought back rations?

I did. What the sergeant would allow us at least. By which I should say not very much.

Shoes?

A half dozen pair.

Batman stood with the letter, looking out over the paddocks at the strange dark sky above them. A hawk turned against it, watching for little life fleeing the blaze. Batman stuffed the letter in his pocket and slowly tugged down the brim of his hat as if to shield his face from that huge sightless eye blazing overhead. He whistled to the men and signalled them in.

Pigeon and Crook and the Vandemonian gathered up and moved in, their shadows pulling over the charred grass. Batman passed his water flagon on and told them to drink and in turns the men swigged and returned the flagon when they were done. Soon the assignees gathered up as well and they drank and squatted in the cinders. Ash had darkened their clothes and stained their faces and they seemed all of one anonymous hue.

Weather’s likely going bad, said Bill.

That it is, said Batman.

So we havent time to stand about, said Gumm. We need to get it done.

You have time fer this.

For what? said Horsehead.

Batman looked from man to man. Seems we have to do the needful once more, boys.

They nodded solemnly.

Out Swanport way. A hundred or more I’m told.

Black Bill pressed his hands to his hips. That’s rough country.

Bloody Swanport, said Horsehead.

At that point Batman stepped towards the men and he sized them up each and every. She’s a good eighty mile off, he said. Eighty mile of murder. But I tell you, we get them live heads and you get yer tickets. Plain and simple.

They would not meet his gaze.

He shook his head in disgust, turned to the Dharug men. What say you, Pigeon?

The tracker scratched his balls. We. Us nine. We give them buggers good time I reckon.

Crook grinned and spoke, waving his hand.

You see? said Batman. Even the Parramattas have stomach for a fight. And them free men already. You bastards might not wear chains but by God you are shackled.

They pondered on that across a moment.

I’m for it, said Baxter.

As am I, said Gumm.

Horsehead spat on the blackened grass. Better chained than buried I say. We was lucky last time, lucky them cannibals never found us. That’s the head and tail of it.

You think he’ll let you stay on as a hand? said Gumm. He’ll have you carted back to Campbell Town lockup, wont he?

There’s worse in life than prison bars, Gummy.

All eyes shifted onto him as he kneaded the blue obelisk inked on his knuckles and rocked to and fro on his haunches. Around him a thousand thin smokes rose like stalks of wheat
from the smouldering ashes. All right, he said after a length, I’ll do it. Fer that blasted ticket.

Batman crushed the letter in his fist. Then let us strike out tomorrow, he said.