Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (22 page)

The two men dodged the prickly low branches of the scrub as they loped through the bush. Tom was careful not to trip on the ankle-high termite nests that littered the scrub as they alternately jogged and walked. He suspected that Wallarie only broke into a walk for his benefit and his stamina amazed him. The warrior was all muscle and no excess weight as he jogged, trailing his three long spears and a stone axe. Tom carried his battered water canteen, Bowie knife and big Colt pistol with its powder flask and pouch for lead ball.

As Wallarie jogged, he used his spears as a balance to his loping stride and Tom felt awkward in comparison with the pistol holster and water canteen flapping at his side.

Just on sundown Wallarie slowed to a walk and gave the hunter’s signal to rest. Tom slumped to the ground, praying self-indulgently that they would remain there and sleep for the night. He took long gulps of water from his canteen which he passed to Wallarie, who only took short sips. He had barely time to stretch and ease his stiffening muscles when Wallarie hissed softly in the lengthening shadows, ‘We go on. I know where the white men will be camped.’

Wallarie knew that all creatures in the bush sought a source of water at sundown and the only water ahead was a creek he knew they could reach before dawn.

Tom groaned as he struggled to his feet and gave Wallarie a grim smile to show that he was ready to follow him once again. At least they were walking and not running this time, he consoled himself, as he followed the broad-shouldered and naked black warrior ahead of him.

But even the walk was exhausting as they followed a star trail in the sky. To fight his tiredness, Tom forced himself to remember Biddy’s and Toka’s mutilated bodies. And there was also just the slightest chance that they might find Young Billy and Mondo alive if they kept up the killing pace.

It was just on dawn of the relentless trek that the two men were rewarded with the distant sound of snoring and the glow of a dying camp fire reflected off the trunks of coolabah trees by a muddy water hole. The last of the stars were leaving the night sky when the two men silently stalked the unsuspecting shepherds, sleeping soundly by the warm glow of the camp fire.

The attack was sudden and swift.

Wallarie’s spear hissed across the short distance between hunter and hunted and the barbed point caught Young Joe in the throat as he rose groggily from under his blanket. He had been disturbed by the whinny of his horse hobbled nearby as it sniffed the presence of the two strangers approaching.

The spear exited from the back of the young shepherd’s neck, cutting short any attempt to scream, and Young Joe had finally faced a myall warrior as he had dreamed he might one day, except that he never saw the warrior who had killed him.

In his death throes, he thrashed about wrapped in his blanket and crashed into Monkey beside him. Blood spattered the older shepherd’s face and when Monkey opened his eyes to curse irritably, he looked directly into the terrified and bulging eyes of the young shepherd, clutching at the long hardwood shaft projecting from his neck.

Monkey screamed in his terror. He grappled desperately for his revolver but froze when he stared up into the smoky grey eyes of the strange myall standing over him with a Colt levelled at his head. Turning, the Glen View shepherd saw the terrible spectre of a giant black man bring his stone axe down with a bone-crushing crunch on Young Joe’s head.

‘You have only two ways of dying,’ the strange myall said to Monkey, and it was only when he spoke that Monkey realised the myall was a white man. ‘Either I kill you in a relatively civilised manner, or I let my black friend over there kill you. And he’s not civilised.’

Monkey felt a wet warmth spreading in his crotch and Tom wrinkled his nose at the foul stench when the terrified man’s bowels also voided.

‘Please, matey, please . . .’ he pleaded as he grovelled towards Tom. ‘Please don’t kill me. I ain’t done nothin’ to no one in me life. I never done wrong by . . .’

Tom swung the barrel of his pistol at the side of the man’s face and the stricken shepherd howled his distress, falling back with blood oozing from a long slash over his eyes. He lay curled in a foetal position, whining like a whipped dog. ‘Please don’t hurt me, matey.’

‘Last time. Do you want a quick death? Or a slow death?’ Tom snarled. ‘Or maybe we might even give you the same death you gave the old man over the fire. Eye for an eye, the Bible says,’ he added casually and Monkey snapped out of his fear-induced stupor to seriously consider his limited options. He knew there was something worse than death. It was how you died.

‘You, matey. I want you to do it,’ he croaked as his crazed eyes flicked from side to side, searching for any slim hope of escape. But the gun, inches from his head, and the hard grey eyes of the man staring at him with such malevolence, let him know that pleading for his life was an utter waste of time. He held no hope whatsoever that he would live to see the sun set that day and was gradually resigning himself to death at the hands of the white man.

‘Well, now that you know that your death will be “civilised” I have some conditions,’ Tom said in a flat voice as Monkey slowly came out of his foetal position and sat up, shaking uncontrollably. ‘Then if you answer truthfully, I will honour the deal we have made between us.’

Tom squatted on his haunches and dropped the barrel of the pistol away from the trembling shepherd while Wallarie stood a couple of paces behind him, deceptively relaxed with the deadly stone axe swinging casually at his side.

‘Firstly, I would like to know where the third man, who was with you before last night, is now?’ he asked quietly as he fixed the shepherd’s eyes with his own.

‘Old Jimmy, the bastard!’ Monkey flared with a touch of ironic anger. ‘He took the gin and shot through just after we put our ’eads down las’ night.’

‘Where was he taking her?’

‘Probably up to the Balaclava ’omestead,’ Monkey answered carefully as he was acutely aware that Wallarie was standing behind him with the axe he had used to crush Young Joe’s skull. ‘The boss there, Mister Bostock, was looking for a nice bit of black velvet. An’ the gin wasn’t a bad looker for a darkie,’ he said tactlessly, but Tom kept his temper at the shepherd’s crude and demeaning reference to Mondo.

‘What do you know about a dispersal hereabouts?’ he asked. ‘Maybe half a year ago?’

Monkey hesitated. He was going to die anyway.

‘I was there,’ he mumbled and looked down at the ground. He dared not stare into the cold grey eyes of the man opposite him.

‘Do you remember if you saw a big white man with an old Aboriginal offsider at any time?’

Monkey’s narrow eyes widened with a sudden recognition. ‘You is Tom Duffy. I knows of you,’ he exclaimed as he lifted his eyes to stare at Tom, who was startled by the man’s knowledge of his identity. How could he know who he was? ‘Mister Macintosh told us youse might be alive,’ Monkey continued to babble. ‘He said there was a bonus in the pay for anyone who found you, even . . .’ he hesitated as he realised what he was about to say.

‘Even if what?’ Tom prompted.

‘. . . Even if youse was dead,’ Monkey replied in a hoarse whisper.

‘Jesus!’ Tom blasphemed. He had been right to avoid all white men in the area after the dispersal. ‘You mean I might have had an “accident”. Why?’ he asked. ‘Why was I to be killed?’

‘Because youse was helping the darkies the day we were tryin’ to clear them off the land,’ Monkey replied. ‘The day when Mister Angus was killed by them.’

Tom was puzzled by the shepherd’s explanation that he had been accused of aiding Wallarie’s people. Especially since he had been judged and sentenced by a man he had never met.

Monkey volunteered an explanation. ‘Your ol’ man ’ad us bailed up after some darkie speared Mister Angus,’ he said. ‘An’ your ol’ man gave the darkie the chance to get away. When we left to go after ’im, the darkies speared yer old man, and the nigger ’e was with.’

‘You are lying,’ Tom snarled. ‘My father was killed by a white man.’

Monkey appeared genuinely confused at his accusation, as the big Irish teamster had been in the custody of Lieutenant Mort when the shepherds had last seen him alive. Had not the trap reported that he had left the two prisoners chained to a tree and when he returned to pick them up he found them speared to death? There was furtive talk around the Glen View camp fires that Mort had actually done away with the Irishman. But few were stupid enough to voice their suspicions, not even when drunk, as it was not wise to bring the wrath of Mister Macintosh down on you.

‘If ’e was killed by a white man then it was by the trap, Mort,’ Monkey ventured.

‘Mort who?’

‘Lieutenant Morrison Mort of the Native Mounted Police,’ Monkey replied. ‘That’s who probably killed yer old man.’

Tom noticed that something had attracted Wallarie’s attention, as he had suddenly tensed then walked warily towards a stand of coolabah trees not far from the water hole where he froze, staring into the trees. As Tom watched Wallarie, he knew he had found something and he had a sick feeling he knew what it was. Monkey followed Tom’s gaze to where Wallarie stood among the coolabah trees and began to tremble violently.

Tom swung on him with a burning murderous rage and the shepherd instinctively cringed away. ‘I don’t want to go over there,’ Tom said in a cold and flat voice. ‘Because if I go over there, I will probably break my word and hand you over to my black friend who appears to be a bit upset at what he is looking at right now. So I am going to ask you. Is it what I think it is?’

Monkey had trouble finding enough moisture in his mouth to talk.

‘’E’s found the darkie boy,’ he croaked. ‘Old Jimmy decided to cut off ’is cock and balls after he fucked ’im last night.’

‘While he was alive?’ Tom asked with a deadly and controlled fury.

The shepherd could only nod his head as he stared bleakly at the ground between his feet.

‘I want you to look at me,’ Tom said quietly. ‘I want my eyes to be the last thing you see before I send you to burn in hell. Look at me, you murdering bastard.’

Slowly Monkey raised his head and tried to avert the grey eyes staring at him. But the voice was soft and lulling, almost hypnotic, and the last thing he remembered was that the young man’s eyes were like the big Irishman’s eyes that had bailed them up the day of the dispersal. Monkey was hardly aware of the sound of the gun or the lead bullet that tore a hole through his forehead as he pitched backwards into the warm ashes of the camp fire. His death was merciful as Tom had promised.

When Tom Duffy pulled the trigger, he had crossed from his own world and irreversibly into Wallarie’s. For now he was truly a white myall and one with the avenging spirit of the sacred hill of the Nerambura.

He no longer cared for the white race he had been born into. His people were now the people of the plain, of the brigalow scrub and the wild places beyond the frontier. The personal execution of the Macintosh shepherd had sealed forever any hope of a way back to the white man’s world of towns and cities, and the company of his family in Sydney.

TWENTY

T
he Aboriginal shepherd respectfully skirted the two bodies, as he had a deeply superstitious fear of the dead. He squatted reluctantly beside the body of young Joseph Blake.

The body was bloated and decomposing and Young Joe’s hands still grasped the shaft of the spear in his throat. A few feet away, partially in the ash remains of the long-dead fire, Monkey lay on his back in a similar condition. Plump white maggots crawled and writhed from the orifices of his body.

‘Tell me, Goondallie, how many men?’ Donald Macintosh stood behind the Aboriginal shepherd staring at the bodies of his two employees.

Goondallie rose and searched about the ground with his eyes.

‘Two fella, boss. One whitefella, one blackfella. Funny business,’ he frowned, scratching his head, and Donald turned to the two young shepherds who had stood well back from the bodies with sickly expressions on their pale faces. They were ‘new chums’ recently from the shores of England. For them, the lurid stories recounted in the bars of the frontier hotels and grog shanties about sudden death at the hands of treacherous ambushing myalls had taken on a terrible reality. They stared with morbid fascination at the bloated bodies of Monkey and Young Joe, who they had laughed and drunk with only days earlier.

‘Ross, Graham. Get down and bury them,’ Donald snapped angrily as he walked over to his horse to get a water canteen.

The putrefying smell of the bodies left an unpleasant copper-like taste in his mouth and he spat the first mouthful of water onto the ground. Monkey had been clearly shot in the head. At first he had made the presumption that one of the blacks had somehow got hold of Monkey’s gun and used it to kill him. But from Goondallie’s more learned observations, it appeared that a white man might have used the gun.

‘Get the spear out of Young Joe before you bury him. I want to have a look at it,’ he called to Goondallie, who acknowledged his boss with a wave before going about his primitive and grisly operation with a sharp knife.

While Goondallie cut carefully around the spear, the shepherds scraped two shallow graves in the crumbly soil with a shovel. They dug the graves immediately beside the corpses. That way they only had to roll the repulsive remains of the dead men into the holes and not lift them.

Donald had mounted the search for the shepherds when Old Jimmy had returned alone to the Glen View homestead days earlier and was evasive about why Monkey and Young Joe were not with him. He was, however, clearly worried that the two men he had left at the water hole had not returned to the homestead and he was able to lead Donald and the three shepherds back to the last camp site he had shared with his companions.

Now Old Jimmy sat astride his horse well back from his two former and very dead companions, wavering between guilt for having left them to meet their violent deaths alone and extreme relief that he had not been with them.

Donald noticed the old shepherd hanging back and bellowed, ‘Get over here, you sodomising bastard, and tell me what happened. Or I will shoot you off that horse, so help me, God.’

Old Jimmy reluctantly kicked his horse forward and eased himself down out of the saddle to stand contritely before his boss. He had trouble looking Donald in the face. He shifted from one foot to the other, displaying his extreme nervousness to the man towering over him.

‘Why aren’t you lying dead with them?’ Donald roared angrily. ‘Tell me the bloody truth or I swear I will shoot you right now.’

Old Jimmy picked at a sore on his lip and mumbled, ‘We caught a young gin south of here and Monkey there says I should take her up to Balaclava to Mister Bostock,’ he lied. ‘Mister Bostock said he needed a darkie girl around the house.’

‘Yes, Bill would,’ Donald reflected sarcastically. ‘How much did he pay you for the gin?’ he demanded angrily.

‘A fiver, Mister Macintosh. That’s all,’ Jimmy answered truthfully. He knew that there was no sense in lying about the price. Bostock and Macintosh were neighbours who occasionally visited each other.

‘How is it that Monkey let you take the girl when I know damn well that he would have done so himself had he thought of the idea,’ the Scot demanded. He glanced back at the two shepherds sweating under the hot sun with bandannas around their faces to stifle the stench as they scraped out the two graves.

‘He was goin’ to cut the gin’s throat for a bit of fun before we left the water hole in the mornin’,’ Jimmy explained. ‘But I figured I may as well make some money off ’er. It was a shame to waste ’er like that. An’ besides, he and Young Joe had a good time with her, before I rode out. That’s all, Mister Macintosh. On me mother’s grave, that’s all.’

Donald glared at him for an uncomfortably long time while the old shepherd shuffled his feet nervously like a dog expecting a beating from his master. His years under the lash of a penal system had taught him to cower in the face of angry authority. ‘I don’t understand,’ Donald finally said as he pondered on the fates of his two dead shepherds. ‘How could they have been taken so easily, by the looks of things, by just two men?’

Jimmy brightened because he had the answer and felt volunteering the information might ingratiate him with his boss.

‘We were out ’ere a week and never saw a sign of any darkies until a few days back when we came across a couple of old darkie men. We caught one of ’em, but the other got away. Just seemed to disappear into thin air. Anyway, while we had ’im, a crazy old gin attacks us with a digging stick. So we shot her. We had a look around after we . . .’ he paused in his narrative of the events

‘Go on. I don’t particularly care how your devious minds would have found ways to amuse yourselves with some old blackfella’s death,’ Donald said with a shrug of his shoulders.

‘Well, we only found the young gin and a boy later on,’ Jimmy continued. ‘Figured they must have been the only Nerambura left after we dispersed ’em back in November. There was no sign of any young darkie men so we figured we were pretty safe. Didn’t keep watch at nights.’

‘And it got Monkey and Young Joe killed,’ Donald said bitterly. He dismissed the shepherd with a growl of contempt. Jimmy scuttled back to his horse which had wandered a few yards away to graze. Donald wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hat and walked over to the shade of a tree to wait for Goondallie to finish his grisly task.

The shepherds paused to swig from their water canteens as Goondallie broke off the barbed end of the spear. He was careful not to scratch himself as he also had been taught the trick of plunging spears into the carcasses of animals that had died from snake bite. Death from such a scratch was a lingering and painful way to cross into the spirit world of the Dreaming.

He scrutinised the end of the spear and frowned.

He was shaking his head as he walked across to the squatter sitting on a log, puffing at his briar pipe.

‘This fella spear all same spear kill Mister Angus, Boss,’ Goondallie said as he gingerly turned over the barbed head in his hand. ‘Same blackfella kill Mister Joe, kill Mister Angus.’

The Aboriginal’s observation struck Donald with a cold chill as he had surmised that the death of the two Macintosh shepherds was down to some white renegade who had lived with the blacks. But this was a whisper of a spectre rising from the depths of the brigalow scrub to haunt him.

‘Duffy!’

The name came to his lips as a strangled whisper. The Aboriginal shepherd looked questioningly at his boss. He knew fear when he saw it. And what he saw on his boss’s face was pure fear.

Donald stared out to the brigalow scrub, baking under the hot sun, as if he expected to see a white man suddenly materialise, brandishing a gun and screaming ancient Celtic curses on him and his family. And standing beside the terrible apparition of the big Irishman, a tall warrior, with spear and boomerang, grinning at him.

Enid had mentioned in a letter the problems she was having in Sydney with another son of the dead Irish teamster. Of how his beloved daughter had become infatuated with the dead man’s son. A terrible coincidence across time and space. Or was it some kind of myall curse on his family? He rose to his feet and banged the pipe savagely against the trunk of a tree.

‘Hurry up and get those men in the ground,’ he roared. ‘Just throw some dirt on their faces. We will give them a proper Christian burial later. Then get on your horses and get back to Glen View.’ The shepherds exchanged surprised looks. Something had agitated the boss in a big way.

Donald was already on his horse and galloping off before the two shepherds had covered the dead men in the shallow graves. They cast about with fearful looks. Maybe the darkies were watching them even now and were stalking them. They left the bodies unburied, as they did not want to be alone in the bush with their over-active imaginations.

Donald rode hard.

Although Duffy and the black killer had a few days’ start, they were on foot. He knew this from finding the dead shepherds’ horses still in their hobbles, grazing less than a mile away from the water hole. At the camp site, he had noticed that the dead men’s guns and food were gone. But the horses had not been taken because they would be too easily tracked by his Aboriginal employees.

Duffy and the black killer were smart. Even Goondallie admitted to losing their trail not far from the camp.
But not smart enough.
Donald had a good idea where the two men would have gone, as Old Jimmy would have left a clear trail to track all the way to Balaclava station.

Now it was only a matter of rounding up an armed party from Glen View and going after them. If Duffy was with the black killer, then he would be shot down for the murderer he was. At least now he did not have to show ‘accidental death’ in an inquiry by the authorities. Duffy was now a murderer of white men. A common criminal.

It took a half day of hard riding to reach Balaclava station.

When Donald rode in with his party of armed shepherds, he was met by an angry Bill Bostock.

‘Donald, I am going to horsewhip that damned man of yours for bringing that infernal gin here,’ he raged as he stomped around the dusty yard in front of the tin and bark hut that was his homestead. ‘The damned gin has brought nothing but trouble to Balaclava and all my blackfellas have gone walkabout on me. Seems the last couple of nights they were scared off by some wild myall out there in the scrub. They say he has powerful magic and those damned worthless blacks of mine even helped the girl escape last night. Appears the myall’s name is Wallarie and he threatened to come in the night and cut their throats if they didn’t help.’

Donald rubbed his forehead. He had a bad headache brought on by the hard ride and anxious thoughts that Duffy and the black killer he now knew was called Wallarie might evade him. He eased himself from his saddle stiffly. ‘Fortunately for Jimmy’s hide, I left him back at Glen View,’ Donald said in a tired voice and reached for his water canteen. But he gave the water a second thought. ‘Bill, you wouldn’t have any real scotch, would ye?’

The English squatter nodded. ‘Inside the hut. I have a feeling your ride here has something to do with the gin,’ he said sympathetically.

‘I don’t hold out much hope of you ever finding her,’ Donald replied pessimistically. But he knew Mort might have more luck. It was only a matter of sending a rider to Rockhampton to tell the policeman the news of the confirmed existence of Tom Duffy. And that Duffy and the myall murderer of Angus were well and truly alive and travelling together with a darkie girl they had been able to spirit away from the Balaclava run. He trudged after Bostock towards the bark hut while his men dismounted to seek the scant shade under the verandah of the crudely built homestead.

Old Jimmy sat with his back against a gnarled gum tree under the midday sun. Flies buzzed their irritating song around his head and he swatted listlessly at them. He dozed as he guarded the sheep with their heads bent, chomping at the luscious green shoots that would soon enough wither and die as the ground dried out.

His sheepdog, a border collie crossed with some breed from Rockhampton, dozed at his feet with her long nose on her paws keeping him company in his banishment to the furthermost part of the lease. His punishment was of little concern to him, as Donald Macintosh had let him keep the five pounds Bill Bostock had given him for the young Aboriginal girl, and he had already spent the money on a good supply of rum to help him pass the time.

Old Jimmy’s throbbing head felt fuzzy from the bottle of raw spirits he had drunk the night before. Drinking was the only option available to kill the reality of his existence. The loneliness and boredom had driven more than one shepherd mad or to suicide. But at least he no longer had to fear the long spears of the Darambal tribesmen who had once roamed the territory. Their dispersal had finalised forever their existence as a threat to the Macintosh flocks and it was not likely that the murderers of Young Joe and Monkey would hang around the district with the Native Mounted Police assured to ride in search of them.

The dog pricked its ears and its nose came off its paws. Old Jimmy continued to doze until he heard the low warning growl from the dog, which stood tensely staring past the flock of sheep into the shimmering haze of the still bush. Old Jimmy snapped from his lethargy and blinked. She had detected something out in the bush that only her keen senses would notice and he pushed himself stiffly to his feet, reaching for the old Baker rifle that lay loaded at his side.

The dog exploded with barks as the black figure rose from the tussock grass on the furthest side of the sheep. The frightened shepherd raised the rifle to his shoulder but made the fatal mistake of snapping off his shot without aiming at the naked Aboriginal, who was taunting him with shouts and gesticulations. The heavy lead ball whined off into the bush, smacking into the leaves of a low shrub an arm’s length from the warrior, who turned and displayed his naked buttocks to the terrified shepherd, who was now holding a useless rifle.

From the corner of his eye, Jimmy was shocked to see a big, bearded white man, almost as naked as the Aboriginal warrior, rise from the grass to point a brace of revolvers at him. But he recognised the Aboriginal girl who stood behind the big white man, as she was the one he had forced to walk to the Balaclava station behind his horse with a rope around her neck.