The Bark Cutters (14 page)

That was the beginning of the end for her. She knew then she would have to live out her days on Wangallon, her body growing parched and wrinkly as the harsh sun dried up the land around her. She stayed for Cameron, for her love of him, to ensure his rightful place in the family remained secure. Now Sue's beloved boy was gone.

With great effort, Sue collected herself and looked once more around her dead son's room. It was time to say goodbye to him, to both the past and the future. She was too old to begin her life anew. Even if she wished it, her mind felt, on occasion, as if it
were being carefully torn into tiny shreds of paper. Sue knew she was being skilfully invaded. It was as if another person, having taken up residence in the smallest recess of her brain, remained intent on methodically ravaging the remainder of her thoughts. It was just as well, she decided, closing the bedroom door behind her. Some things were too painful to remember.

Half-hidden behind a large gum, Sarah watched as Anthony dismounted, picked up a stick and threw it into the muddy water. Her mind was a blur. She still found it incomprehensible that her brother had been buried nearly a week ago. She felt weak and cheated, yet her thoughts kept returning to Cameron's wild pranks, silly jokes and endless horseback rides into the blue haze of the bush. Resting her cheek against the cool bark of the gum, Sarah gazed beyond horse and rider. Her life was now engulfed by her parents' devastation, Sue's downward spiral from reality and the knowledge that the truth had been kept hidden from her. Cameron had been her half-brother.

Sarah followed Anthony's movements to the very tree the two friends had thrown their knives into before Cameron's mad chase into the lignum. Anthony walked slowly around the gnarled trunk, but she knew he would not find the blade marks, her own hands had already examined every inch. She watched him running his hands over the bark for fruitless minutes before kneeling to pick up a stone, weighing it carefully in both hands, then throwing it deep into the lignum beyond.

When he doubled over, his face in his hands, birds escaped hurriedly from their trees, squawking loudly. Sarah had never heard such a cry, nor did she ever expect to hear such a piercing death wail again. It was then she knew how much Anthony had loved her brother.

He was gone, Cameron was truly gone. From a web of pain the memory of his funeral came to her: Sue, prostrate on his coffin; Ronald, crumpled, supported by unknown relatives. There had been many words, although none had touched her. When the cars drove off in procession, Sarah knelt at the foot of his grave. She could recall the damp earthiness of the freshly turned soil and the melancholy birdsong of a lone Bower bird as she imagined the heart of Wangallon wrapping her arms about her brother. And she also remembered a coldness; the chill of being alone.

Yet Anthony had remained to watch over her. A broad hand resting on her shoulder, fingers supporting her elbow as she rose, the caress of his face as his hand brushed dirt from her stockinged legs. Only when he rose, straightening his broad back, did Sarah recognise his anguish, the wretchedness. Even beyond her own pain she could sense his. He was there that day when all the others disappeared. He was there for
her
, Sarah reminded herself. Did he know then? Was he conscious of a recess deep within her heart, narrowing silently, sealing itself forever? By Cameron's grave, in the midday sun, Sarah had taken Anthony's hand. Why could she not do it again?

‘You all right?' she asked, finally summoning the courage to speak with him.

‘No. Your grandfather says you're leaving. You told me you would never leave Wangallon, Sarah.' He looked straight ahead, his gaze somewhere between the far bank and a black wattle tree. ‘I know how hard it has been on you, but surely if we try …'

‘Try what? Things will never be the same here for me, Anthony.' She moved to the water's edge, the toes of her riding boots sinking into the sandy mud of the creek's edge. The water rushed past her. A brolga stalked the opposite bank, his mate appearing from behind fallen timber in a flurry of blue grey. The pair were joined by another six birds, their graceful landings soon forming an elegant grouping. The flock began dancing, long legs
sinking into soft mud, fluttering wings and arching necks moving in a form of corroboree.

They had laid here, Sarah recalled, the three of them. Only yesterday, it seemed. While they rested after cooling down in the river, Cameron had stripped naked, covered himself with mud, and jumped out in front of them like some deranged native. He had succeeded in scaring both her and Anthony so completely that they eventually slapped him hard on the back several times to stop him choking on his own laughter. In spite of herself, Sarah smiled.

‘Everywhere I turn he's around me – his laugh, his voice, in the trees, on the wind. It hurts too much to stay.'

‘I'm staying. I love this place like my own home. It's your home too, Sarah.'

‘Before you came, Anthony, it was just my brother and me. Our parents, well … Grandfather agrees I should leave for a while, get some perspective.'

Anthony was now behind her. Sarah smelt the closeness of him. She could turn and hug him as she had so desperately wanted to the day of the funeral, yet somehow hugging him would not make things better. Whatever they had once shared now lay stagnant, buried in the past with her beloved Cameron.

‘I don't want you to leave, Sarah, I'm asking you not to leave.'

His fingers were insistent on her shoulder, the tips plying the fine bone beneath. ‘Don't ask me that, Anthony,' she turned to him, brushing aside his touch. ‘I have to leave. I can't stay here with grieving parents.'

‘You are not alone.' Anthony raised a finger to trace the path of a tear falling down her cheek.

Sarah moved back quickly. Dreaming of Anthony all those months ago, wanting him, she had waited for some definite sign from him and it had never come. Damn it all, now he wanted her to stay, and she couldn't. She felt at odds with herself, adrift.
Remaining on Wangallon at this time in her life was the last thing she needed. She couldn't spend each waking moment dreaming of the old days. She couldn't spend each evening with her mother's unceasing hostility or her father's blank stare.

‘Bloody hell, Cameron was everything to me. He taught me what love and loyalty mean. He looked after me. He was my friend. Nothing can replace him. No-one can make things better for me at the moment, Anthony.' She looked beyond the water to the distant memory of her childhood.

The once welcoming warmth of those extraordinary violet eyes stared back with a determination unknown to him and, Anthony now knew he was too late. So he left her standing by the creek, her face pale, her eyes rimmed by dark circles. He left her knowing that with Sarah's departure and Cameron's death, the future of Wangallon was unknown.

The horsemen stopped in the shade of a large Wilga tree and dismounted in a haze of flying grit and biting black flies. Hamish sprang lightly down from the saddle and turned to face his assortment of men. The sun's apex ate their shadows as smoke rose thinly in the distance.

‘This is it.' He spat the stub of his cigarette from his mouth and raised an arm, gesturing in a wide arc. ‘The boundaries are fenced. We'll drive the sheep straight up, then …'

‘Boss?' Jasperson queried, his hand straying to scratch at the perpetual itch in his crotch. ‘Why did you choose this piece? There's nothing here. It is so bloody flat.' He gazed disinterestedly at the land about him. Certainly with the number of sheep thefts neatly accomplished over the last year, distance provided security, yet here in this place Jasperson felt removed from humanity. ‘No hills. Nothing.'

Hamish only smiled. ‘We will ride towards that smoke.' Remounting his horse, Hamish led Jasperson, Dave and two
other ringers slowly across crackling grasses as a biting westerly blistered their faces. The property comprised a large tract of land reclaimed from a previous pastoralist gone bust. Crows cried out above them. The land was heavily timbered in spots, the tall trees blocking the horizon. Hamish cursed under his breath at this wild, lonely country now belonging to him alone. It was not unlike the land of his forefathers in its harsh beauty. He liked a battle and by God this wily piece of fertile dirt would give him one. It was a long hard ride from his exploits at Ridge Gully and even further from the goldfields of Victoria, the place where his brother rested. New South Wales was his country now and it had been dearly paid for.

Hamish directed his men towards the smoke. A huddle of figures came slowly into view.

‘Aborigines,' Jasperson whispered.

Hamish nodded as the group stood on their approach. ‘Be on your guard, men.' There had been many incidents of altercations between the blacks and the whites and death had been the result on both sides. He was the owner of this land, but these people had been here first and he reckoned their knowledge of the bush would be invaluable. He was not prepared to risk his new life through arrogance. On reaching the group of Aborigines camped under a box tree Hamish spoke slowly, aware of his heavy accent, wary of their guarded eyes as he dismounted and removed a quantity of tobacco from his saddlebag. There were six of them, tall, lean, dark. Two of the men wore white man's clothes and had thick leather belts and wide-brimmed hats. They nodded, accepting the dark moist shreds before their teeth began chewing at the wads growing sodden with spittle in their bulging cheeks. Flies settled over the group, crawling over backs, hands and faces. The horses shuffled in the heat. Using a filthy forefinger, Hamish drew a map in the dirt, roughly drawing the borders of his land. Instinctively, one of the blacks leaned over and added extra bends
to the river and a number of creeks. Extending his hand outwards, he then pressed his thumb into the dirt; their exact position.

‘You boss of Wangallon now?' White teeth smeared brown with tobacco juice winked from a midnight skin. ‘You need men, boss?' he enquired shrewdly, not waiting for an answer, ‘you come to me. Plenty of help and no problems if you look after tribe.' He pushed his wide-brimmed hat so that it perched rakishly on the back of his head.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' Dave exclaimed, spitting his own chewing tobacco into the dirt at his feet. Black ants immediately began crawling towards his offering. ‘He's asking for terms.'

Hamish chuckled. ‘What do they call you?'

‘Boxer.'

‘And you worked for McInnes?' Hamish asked, calling the previous owner by name.

Boxer gave a single nod. ‘Good man, but weak here.' He thumped his chest.

‘How many of you are there?' Hamish figured that he would need as many men as he could get.

Boxer squinted his eyes as a willy-willy of dust lifted upwards not three feet away from them and blew through the group. ‘Enough.'

Later that night, camped in the open, Hamish watched the mesmerising stars for long hours, the strange southern stars of a foreign land. There was no breeze, only the faint rustling of creatures in the drying grasses, the call of an owl claiming his domain. He turned on his side, still half-expecting Charlie to be lying beside him, talking of the old country and of their place in the new. It was no small thing for a brother to have loved him so that he would forsake the only life he wanted, to follow him to the edge of the world.

Hamish sat up silently, careful not to disturb his sleeping men as the moon's shadow crept in and out of the rim bordering their campfire. The night air, having cooled a little, wiped a layer of exhaustion from his body as he suddenly envisaged the large homestead. A copy of the house plans were in his saddle-bag. Tomorrow they would begin pegging out the foundations.

There was a ridge of cypress pine not a half day's ride from the homestead site. It was from here Hamish would start cutting timber for the frame, the pines used ensuring his home would not be destroyed by the interminable white ants of this country. He would fell trees from two other ridges so that no one area was denuded of trees, using a pitsaw to cut lengths; each man taking turns to stand in the hole beneath, calloused hands grasping one end of the two-handled saw, wood chips, saw dust and dirt crusting eyes and caking faces. The felled logs would then be loaded onto a dray and carted back to the site to be barked. The barking of the timber to reveal the creamy wood was a tedious job but the reward lay in the virgin timber beneath. The bark itself, once dried and flattened, made an excellent waterproof roof, although Hamish considered such a measure temporary. He had a mind to transport shingles from Sydney when funds would allow it, beneath which he would eventually have cedar ceilings, cut by his own hands.

Hamish figured he and his men would have the frame up within a week, and by then the extra labourers from Ridge Gully would have arrived. They had been hired to help with the barking of the timber and the sawing of lengths for the ceilings and floors. The walls were to be constructed of pisé, a concoction of mud and grass bricks that once dried, a process of some months, would be indented all over with a hammer before being painted with a couple of layers of mortar and lime. By month's end the cedar doors would be built, with the main structure close to completion. It would be a proud building, one to last
over one hundred years. Yet in the meantime he needed a simple bark hut for himself and his men, and there were outbuildings, men's quarters, a shearing shed, horse yards and drafting yards that either needed to be repaired or built.

‘Wangallon is your memorial, Charlie lad,' Hamish mumbled softly. ‘No matter what happens I swear Wangallon will be held by a Gordon for all eternity.' Removing his pocket knife from the worn leather pouch at his waist, Hamish flicked open the blade, spitting on it he rubbed the metal firmly against his trouser leg. Cutting a deep gash in the palm of his left hand, he then clenched his fist tightly. Hamish watched as blood ran freely from his flesh to stain the soil of Wangallon.