Absolution Creek (28 page)

Chapter 21

T
he horse-drawn dray careered violently to one side of the dirt road, throwing Squib, Jane and Beth onto their sides. Tin plates fell from a stack and a kettle hit Beth, before rolling towards the open end of the dray. Beth began bawling immediately. Jane clutched at the precious kettle, which she had caught just in time, and proceeded to kick the spluttering four-year-old in the leg.

‘Plain Jane, plain Jane,’ Squib antagonised, trying to divert the girl’s attention from Beth. Her stepmother turned and barked at them to all shush and hang on. Beth cowered as Jane grabbed the stacked tin plates to stop their rattling and then, manoeuvring her skinny body against their piled belongings, kicked out her feet. Her aim as usual was perfect and Squib cringed as her thigh became numb. ‘Stop it,’ she yelled, grasping at the splintery sides of the dray as the wooden wheels travelled back over the rough corrugations of the road to the opposite side. ‘Just because youse wanted to have babies with Jimmy Winter doesn’t mean you have to be nasty to us.’

The three girls looked sullenly at each other as they bounced up and down on the wooden boards. Jane scowled and folded her arms. Beth stopped crying. ‘Are you having a b-baby?’ she asked between hiccups.

Jane’s neck twisted towards the front of the dray. Sweat stained the puddle-brown of her mother’s dress, the material taut across the breadth of her back as Abigail hung on grimly to the reins. Ben turned from his seat beside his stepmother and grinned knowingly.

‘No one’s having a baby, silly,’ Jane said to Beth who was now sucking at a length of her short dress. ‘We have enough of those in this family already.’

Ben poked his tongue out in response.

Squib moved to the rear of the dray and dangled her legs over the end. Beneath her bare feet the road moved quickly. A lone magpie swooped low across the dirt track, the trees sucked away by distance until they became a blur of brown-green mingling with blue sky. She swiped at the beads of perspiration on her face and thought of the crooked trees fringing their house. She would miss riding with her father at dawn when the others were still waking. She would miss the paddocks and sheep yards and Waverly No. 4, and she would miss the overseer’s house that was meant to be theirs. For a moment Squib believed that the past two days were only a dream. How else could she explain the events that had forced them to leave Waverly Station? Yet those days now lay behind them and her memories of Mr Purcell’s sheep station were already unravelling in her mind like a ball of twine. The narrow track carried them onwards, tufts of dry grass and coils of dust springing up from the road’s surface. The grit sprayed her bare feet like handfuls of thrown sand as Squib tilted her head towards a sky wispy with white cloud, and tried not to think of the tiredness that made her ache. She was already sick of travelling and sad that they were running away.

The whinnying of a horse quickly drew everyone’s attention. Squib swivelled in the direction of the noise, pulling uncomfortably at her dress, which had caught on the wooden splinters beneath her. It was their father. Tall in the saddle he cantered towards them, straight down the middle of the road, a plume of dust tailing his approach like a guardian angel. The dappled mare slowed with the barest of pressure on the reins and he pulled level with the dray, his hat low, his face streaked with dirt.

‘If we follow the creek I reckon we’ll find ourselves a place to cross eventually. I’d like to be doing it before dark.’ He pointed at violet clouds gathering in the east as he walked his horse beside them.

‘Righto,’ Abigail replied with a sniff. She’d been crying for most of their journey.

Squib scrambled across the bumpy dray to be near her father, ignoring Jane’s kick. ‘Where are we going, Father?’ The wooden boards dug at her knees.

He slowed his horse and came level with her. ‘Hopefully somewhere I can get a bit of work.’ He ruffled her closely cropped hair.

‘Where are we going, Father?’
Jane mimicked softly.

‘Don’t annoy your father.’ Abigail tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear and pushed at the straw hat shading her face. ‘Can we stop for a break, please, Matt?’

Squib caught the quick look of annoyance that crossed her father’s face. He gestured to a large box tree and the dray creaked to a jolting stop in the shade. Squib slid from the dray and was off and running with Jane and Ben in the direction of the creek. Soon they were splashing and kicking cool water at each other.

‘Where do you think we’ll end up?’ Jane asked Ben when exhaustion left them standing ankle-deep in silty mud.

Ben jutted out his chin in imitation of his father and pursed his lips. ‘I heard Father say last night that we’d keep going until he found work. Maybe a boundary rider, maybe a stockman. He might even go droving.’

‘Droving?’ Squib repeated. ‘What about us?’ They all stared at each other.

‘Squib and Beth should stay with Mother. They’re the youngest.’ Jane gave Ben a rare smile. ‘As the oldest we’d be more help to him.’

‘You’re meant to be a maid at Wangallon Station,’ Squib argued. ‘Father says it’s time you went to work.’

‘Who told you that? It’s not true! My father –’

‘He’s not your father,’ Squib yelled. ‘You lost yours. He ran away when you were little and never came back.’

Jane clenched her fists and in two strides crossed the sandy dirt. Squib landed with a thud on the ground. ‘He
is
my father now. You say otherwise and I’ll make you sorry.’

‘Me sorry? It’s your mother that got us into this mess.’

‘It’d be better if we all stayed together,’ Ben said, trying to placate. ‘At least for the moment.’

Jane, hands on her hips, looked sullenly at the water’s surface. Squib brushed dirt from her dress and rose to her feet. One day she’d show Jane.

‘Anyway, Father wouldn’t leave us unless he had to,’ Ben added. They each nodded in agreement as he kicked at the water. ‘If he does leave, though, maybe we should take off. If your mother –’ he looked directly at Jane ‘– if Abigail gets caught . . .’ He swallowed, studying the older girl. ‘If the worst happens, you can bet they won’t let us kids stay together, alone.’

‘My mother did nothing wrong,’ Jane complained. ‘We ran on account of you two being –’

‘We wouldn’t of run if it wasn’t for your thieving mother.’ Squib clenched her fists.

Ben flicked a stone into the sluggish water. ‘We could go somewhere else and wait for Father. Set up our own place.’

‘What about Beth?’ Squib asked.

‘We can’t take a baby with us. Besides,’ he reasoned, ‘she’s not like a real sister.’

‘Thanks. What does that make me?’ Jane turned briefly in the direction of the road as if checking for eavesdroppers. ‘She’s the only mother we’ve got,’ she snapped.

‘She’s
your
mother, Jane, and Beth’s. Not ours.’ Ben looked to Squib for confirmation. Squib pressed her lips together. Sometimes
no speakies
was the best answer.

‘Well I’m not going anywhere.’ Jane crossed her thin arms across her chest. ‘And you won’t either, Ben Hamilton.’

Ben threw another stone into the water.

‘Squib’s right. If we’d stayed at Waverly you’d be keeping house as a maid by now,’ Ben reminded Jane. ‘Once we’re settled, Father will send you away to earn your own keep. He says you’re past the age for it already.’

A tangle of limbs rolled across the ground. Squib wasn’t sure who would win this fight.

‘Kids? C’mon.’

Squib kicked at the two bodies. ‘It’s Father,’ she yelled, booting Jane’s bare legs. Ben and Jane scrambled apart. Their father’s voice had them running across fallen logs, prickly grass and side-stepping a large mounded ant hill. They arrived breathless to stand by the dray, the sun’s rays quickly erasing the memory of the cool creek.

Their father sized them up briefly, ruffling Squib’s lice-controlling shaggy haircut for the second time that day. ‘I want you to all have a bit of bread and a swig of water and then we’ll keep going.’ He looked down to where Beth lay asleep in Abigail’s lap. ‘I don’t want to be stuck on the wrong side of the creek in case that storm arrives early. There’s nothing for us on this side.’ He paused and checked the road in the direction they had so recently travelled. ‘The sooner we’re on the other side the better.’

‘What’s on the other side?’ Ben asked.

Their father scratched his head. ‘Dunno.’

‘Dunno?’ Ben repeated. ‘We want to know, Father. It’s bad enough we had to leave because of what
she
did.’

‘Don’t talk about your mother that way.’

Ben jammed his hands in the pockets of his shorts.

Matt Hamilton’s hand struck Ben’s cheek with a loud slap. Father and son judged each other, Ben holding his cheek silently as tears welled. ‘Get in the dray, Ben.’

Ben ignored the command and sat heavily in the dirt.

Squib looked at the woman who had replaced her mother. Their reason for leaving Mr Purcell’s had festered like a blister waiting to break and now Abigail Hamilton’s actions were beginning to poison the family she’d married into. Squib wished her stepmother and Jane would walk into the bush and disappear. The stout woman was staring out towards the gathering storm clouds, her eyes red-rimmed and vacant. Jane lifted Beth from her mother’s arms.

‘Don’t wake her,’ Abigail cautioned, clambering to her feet and dusting off the dirt from her ankle-length dress. ‘And I won’t be talked to that way, Ben.’

Despite the edge to her voice Squib knew that Abigail Hamilton no longer wielded authority.

Ben spat in the dirt. ‘A fly,’ he responded in defence at his father’s glare.

‘I don’t think you should go droving, Father,’ Squib blurted. ‘I think you should stay with us.’

Her father lifted Squib, sitting her gently on the rear of the dray. ‘Things will work out. You’ll see.’ He touched her nose briefly.

‘Move over,’ Ben complained, spreading his legs until Squib was left with only a few feet of space. Beth curled up behind Jane and Ben, who after a series of angry kicks took ownership of separate sides of the dray. Squib found herself sitting upright at the rear, Ben’s feet only an inch from her behind. Their father tied the dappled mare to the rear of the wagon, before seating himself by Abigail and taking charge of the reins. The dray trundled onto the road and Squib let her body relax into the rolling, bumpy progress of the cart. She looked to where her father and Abigail sat, their backs straight, voices silent. They hadn’t always been like that; now a whole day could pass with the sun glistening between them like a third person.

As the sun began to sink in the west, Squib thought of the crooked trees, the stockman with the busted wrist, the yellow dog, and Mrs Purcell in her high-necked blouse and fancy pearl necklace. She didn’t like to think about Abigail stealing the necklace as it reminded Squib of her own mother’s thieving. For the second time in her short life they were on the run. Tiredness seeped through her. She wondered if she could squeeze up between Jane and Ben. Surely there was room enough for her as well. The shadows lengthened. With a sneeze and an itch of her sunburnt neck, Squib’s head began to droop.

It was dark when Squib woke. She felt herself slipping and her slight fingers grappled for something firm to cling to. A beam of moonlight breaking through overhead cloud revealed the outline of a person. Slowly her stepsister’s features came into view. Squib opened her mouth to call out as a jolt bumped her partially off the end of the dray. She could feel her feet dragging on the dirt. Her father’s horse struck her leg, once, twice, and she frantically reached for Jane’s legs, her fingers touching the older girl’s toes. Jane withdrew them abruptly and, in the instant that her pleading eyes met her stepsister’s, she slipped off the end of the dray into the night.

Chapter 22