Our Sunshine: Popular Penguins (6 page)

She frowned, then rolled her eyes and laughed. Her little finger traced our silvery snail-trails on her thigh. She dabbed me carefully dry with her silky petticoat, pushed it deep into her face, caressed her nose and cheeks, inhaled the silk, then slowly unrolled it, shook the creases out and put it on. This side of her was newly strange again. Her eyes and smile while doing this were coming from some humid foreign place. The crickets by now were used to us and started up again their hot vibration. A whiff of hot gunmetal came off her, or maybe me. I felt like someone living another way of life so thought I’d better act like it. Pressed on her trigger again just where she said to and watched her colours change. Already longing for those birdcalls – the seagull, the parrot, the magpie carolling at the sun. Then pulled her back down on me and let her falling hair shield my eyes against the glare.

This was in my law-abiding time, in the early stages with Mrs C.

I
n the final stage with Mrs C, I made an appearance on her croquet lawn, burnt naked and caked in blood. Sizzled flakes of flesh and cloth flew off us all, spikes of our clotted hair snapped off. None of us was normal. Dan, tied on behind me, was making hooting noises in the wind.

All through those days of thirsty hiding, of guzzling blood and lurching in fires, I’d pictured her juicy green lawn. So the four of us, doubling up on two charred and limping horses, waving shaky guns, appeared like a mad nun’s nightmare in the home paddock of Mrs C.

This was a week or so after Hare’s men poisoned our dam with three strychnine-baited pigs and a decomposed roo or two, then set alight our hideout country to flush us out. A hot February drought, with the bracken and wattle undergrowth drier than touchpaper and all the streams lower than mud. Fires surged along the gullies and up across the ridge in separate bright gashes like cutlass wounds. As the main fire came up on us on the nor’westerly we fled our hut with a neck-bag each of dubious water and the four relief horses carrying hasty packs. Panic flowed in waves from horse to smoking horse and back. In the smoke and noise, Dan’s mare Erina stumbled and Dan led her on foot in giddy spirals until we found them half-buried in the silt of what had been Six Fingers Creek sucking river stones and with their hair on fire from the ash of weeping-willow leaves.

Spewing in the saddle from bad water, shitting too, losing more moisture from our streaming eyes, we were scorched husks by the time we’d found a granite overhang to shelter under and let the main fire jump us. By the time I’d calmed Dan down from gibbering for mother and we’d kept ourselves alive a day, we’d drunk all the water anyway. The horses were colicky and mad from eating burnt feed but Erina was the maddest so while Dan was out to it again we cut her throat, not quite looking at each other, and drank the blood.

This way we lasted another two days. In daylight we hid under rocks from the police patrols, at night we doubled back behind them across the burning hills. Even the blacktrackers couldn’t see in smoke, at night, and where we could we back-burned our tracks. By now we were the scorched and brittle texture of the bush around us. We nibbled the bodies of small charred animals – a spiny anteater, goannas – and vomited again. Steve and Joe chewed burned gumleaves to get the taste out of their mouths while Dan kept sucking rocks like they were toffees. It took an hour just to raise the spittle but then I ate my chinstrap. When at last we found another cave we killed two more horses to celebrate. We fell on their hot necks, pressed our faces in as if they were the iciest mountain streams.

Blood was the only food we could keep down. We drank six horses dry before we saw the croquet lawn three days later and guessed we’d live.

Coming close to Mrs C’s property, we took the chance the bushfire had forced her husband and eldest son and men out mustering. Her Chinese laundry girl spotted us first but fled to the lavatory at the sight of these spirits of murder victims. Certainly we were a charnel house on legs. I – the scorched beast-creature in front – croaked after her, ‘Get the missus!’ and as the horses tottered to the water trough we peeled off their backs like scabs and pushed our snouts in alongside theirs.

Seeing us slobbering in the horse trough made her lose her colour. We weren’t welcome with my lorikeet. First she sent her other children to their rooms. When she could speak properly she said, ‘You’re such a ghastly sight I wonder if I should shoot you for humanity’s sake.’ Both sides of her mouth now turned crisply down. She said, ‘I didn’t think anything could disgust me. I’m well travelled and a country woman and have seen many rough things in my life. But nothing like this.’

She shivered like she was the half-dead one while we shuffled like doomsday omens on the laundry floor. We were beyond shame or trousers. It wasn’t just the blood and ashes clotting our hair and beards, our disgusting odours, our weeping organs, burnt, then chafed from riding. Our skins were layered stiff with blood, crackling and reeking, our mouths were crusted holes. Our blood-coats even had their own high noise: we hummed with flies.

I hadn’t let on, but Joe blinked at her, then me, with ruptured eye veins from the smoke, and gave a sideways grin. ‘
Sunny days
…’ he sang. He was croaking a banjo song of his and Aaron’s, his eyes protruding like blood-reel marbles: ‘
Funny days. All our milk~and~honey days
…’ Bow-legged little Steve, flyblown in several distant parts – maggots had begun to surface – stood deathly silent, bare feet splayed for balance and eyes squeezed shut, while she picked the wrigglers off him. Dan was the groggiest of us, made groggier by the medicinal brandy she’d brought out. Reeling and eyeing Mrs C, he tweaked his blackened prodder, saying, ‘I don’t suppose you’d go a spot of croquet?’

‘You took a risk,’ she hissed at me. ‘Don’t do that again.’

‘I don’t intend to,’ I said. Didn’t have the strength to laugh. I was feeling odd. Scrubbing and bathing gingerly, I was thinking how these blood-coats had soothed our burns and protected us in lieu of clothes. In a strange way I was loath to give mine up.

‘Coming here, I mean,’ she said. ‘Phew, the smell of you. Like a badly slaughtered animal when they hit the bowels.’

R
oar away, lion. Catch my smell on the breeze. Just another animal marking out its territory. And this is mine: this pool in the clay, these gum roots, the shine on those wet shadows, these weeds trampled by my nervy to-and-fro, that warm gust of sentimental human song.

Jesus, where’s that train? Where’s Hare? What’s the time? Why aren’t they here?

Wish we had our peacock here.

Why now these depressed and gutless moments? Keep thinking it’s still not too late to end all this safely, for everyone to stay alive.

Alive or dead. It’s not as if alternatives haven’t been considered. Even canvassed this wild card: whisking off the Governor from the cosiness of his country residence at Mount Macedon.

I can see it now: Relax, Marquis, Lord, Your Excellency, dismiss your underlings and I won’t lay a finger on you. Even though you’ve signed things to have me shot by total strangers, I’m doing this the civillest I can.

This is the scheme. How about a little man-to-man hard drinking in the ranges? Do you good to ride rough and shoot to eat, roll up in a blanket on the ground, wake up with frost silvering your muttonchops. You can have a hearty bushman’s breakfast – a spit, a piss and a good look round. Or, if you’ve got an appetite, wild figs and last night’s leftover kangaroo-tail. Don’t imagine you’ve drunk billy tea spiked with gumleaves and Irish whiskey, laughed around an open fire, smoked a pipe or two, exchanged the rudest gossip, given compliments where they’re due.

And when each side’s top dog has sniffed the other’s bum we’ll lay things on the table over brandy. A three-star conversation – the persecution of the Kellys, the mutual advantage of a bloodless give-and-take, the whole shebang. Jesus, Lord Normanby, let’s face it, your mob’s not very good at it. I’ve got all the selectors on my side: the country boys, the terrain, the whole bush telegraph. And the city people, the little people, don’t mind me either. Hate to say this, Excellent, but we’ve got the numbers.

And don’t worry, there’s a precedent across the river. Your counterpart in New South Wales, Sir Hercules Robinson, pardoned Frank Gardiner on the condition he left the colony. And now I hear Frank’s running the best saloon in San Francisco and a credit to all concerned.

Absolutely.

You can check with Sir Hercules. Drop him a line, send off a wire, give him my best.

Ha! Times change; we’re out of fashion. It’s thirteen years since they cut off Morgan’s head and tied the corpse of Gardiner’s mate, Ben Hall – carrying thirty-two bullets – to his horse and paraded it through the town of Forbes. God knows the precedents aren’t good for outlawry.

Guess what, your Lordship. From our hideout at Bullock Creek, through intermediaries, I made them an offer at the outset.
Charge me and let her go
. The message came back along these lines: We don’t bargain with outlaws – we’ll catch you anyway. What do you think this is, son? That reminds us, must look in and see how your mother’s doing. The word is that in between saying rosaries and Hail Marys she’s looking after all the warders nicely, especially the Germans and those randy Orangemen.
Which one was your father, anyway?

Okay for Gardiner, but Ben Hall was betrayed, first by his wife, then by a friend for money. Then ambushed by the police. Thirty-two bullets in his unarmed body. Over the years I took all that in.

Seems to be common practice everywhere. Read that Jesse James’s brother Frank surrendered for an amnesty. Ended up an usher in a theatre. They had a sign:
Get Your Ticket Torn in Half by Former Outlaw Frank James
.

What about
my
brother? Looked at officially, the only ones who’ve personally killed anyone are me and Joe. Dan? Only a bit of assaulting here and there. Yes, sometimes Dan resents my orders, doesn’t try to see the bigger picture. Doesn’t appreciate my warnings about liquor. Says fugitives need their relief. ‘Am I an outlaw or not? Correct me if I’m wrong, but if I’m not a man yet, why’s half the country trying to shoot me, hang me, poison me, set my balls on fire?’

That sort of talk just makes me want to clip his ears. What’s he thinking when he gallops off in a sulk, doesn’t talk for hours and gets that younger brother’s envious look?

Could Dan go against the blood? And his pal, Steve, he hasn’t shot a soul. He could get an easy pardon for turning us in. Well, Jesus, what about Joe? My lieutenant, the man who knows the schemes. If I were Hare, Joe’d be the one I’d pardon to get the goods on us. Mustn’t forget the one he killed wasn’t police, just an informer. Just a paybook entry, easily overlooked if he turned state’s evidence.

Just Aaron.

They could turn a blind eye to everyone but me. They could let the others go. Mother too. It’s me they want to kill.

And I could call a halt to all this violence. Just blink and keep events from snowballing, at least stop the wild momentum. Four dead already, people gaoled and outlawed, a battle brewing.
A war!
All this madness happening now just because Alexander Fitzpatrick couldn’t hold his brandy-and-lemonade!

Still not too late if we hurried. We could leave here this minute, singly or together. Saddle up and ride safely north across the border. Try a new life in Queensland, even New South Wales. Not as if we haven’t swum the Murray before.

Then why don’t we do it?

There’s more to this now than me, or us.

–
Thank you. I will have another brandy. Just a small one.

T
HE LADY
that asked me about going straight – Madam, if it wasn’t for Fitzpatrick, we’d be meeting in entirely different circumstances. No bonfires, lions and concertinas. Fitzpatrick changed the face of things for ever.

He’s the pivot, the one in a hundred thousand who changes the way things are. Pity he’s a liar and a fool. Things hardly ever work out neatly, do they?

I
t seemed like just an ordinary night at Eleven Mile Creek. Shepherd’s pie. Everyone at the table but George King (absconded), Jim (out of gaol and shearing in the Riverina), and me. Me? I’ve been trimming Mrs C’s bluestone foundations and am lingering late.

So Dan’s the only male at home when Constable Fitzpatrick rides up by way of a nerve-settler at Lindsay’s grog shanty with a warrant to arrest him for some horse matter. Thanks to the peacock’s warning Dan is waiting on the doorstep, fork in hand, as he dismounts and states his business. Dan says, ‘Very well, but let me finish my tea.’

Dan’s story: Fitzpatrick sits down, sweating waves of brandy, keeps his hat on to look official but accepts a cup of tea while Dan slowly chews his pie, carefully butters a slice of bread right into the corners and stirs his tea relentlessly. All the kids around the table are agog at this infuriating performance. Snorts and muffled giggles, a fart or two. Mother frowns, the older girls sigh and roll their eyes.

Fitzpatrick slurps his tea and asks for something stronger. Kate brings him a rum and – the booze, the agreeable absence of other Kelly males – he gives her a drooling smile and tries to sit her on his knee. She elbows him. ‘I’m sixteen and I’m not having that!’

Mother’s reaching for the shovel. ‘Let’s see that warrant.’

Actually all he’s got is a telegram from his district superintendent telling him to proceed with the serving of a warrant. He stands up, weaving, saying, ‘He’s arrested anyway,’ and draws his revolver.

Chairs and dishes crash, the dogs jump for the shepherd’s pie as mother swings the shovel at Fitzpatrick and swipes him on the helmet. But he gets his gun out, swearing bloody murder, so Dan yells, ‘Here’s Ned!’ and as Fitzpatrick swivels around, clamps a wrestling hold on him and gets the gun. Dan throws him outside, taking the door with him, and on the way out Fitzpatrick scratches his wrist on the door latch.