The Burial (21 page)

She stood deathly still in the paddock and watched them pass and as they moved it was like watching a creature hurrying in the night towards its kill. When she could no longer see them she could hear them groaning and then the slowing of their horses when they reached the slope of the mountain.

She knew the price that was on Jessie's head and she knew that it made no difference to men like that if they killed her. There was life in Jessie. Even when my mother was on the cusp of death the old woman had seen it in her. The old woman did not know what she would make of that life but she knew that it was worth more than the price they had put on her.

She opened the gate of the paddock that faced the mountain and returned to the dog, who was still fitting by the tree. She untied the rope at the tree and with a flick of her wrist unwound the muzzle. Unleashed, the dog sprinted out into the dark. The men had left their keen scent in the air and turned up earth with the bolting of their horses. The old woman knew that the dog would track them and finally meet them further up the mountains. She hoped that the yellow-eyed dog would be read as a terrifying omen and she prayed that there were at least some among them who would take heed of such warnings.

IT WAS EVENING when the gang arrived back at the camp and the boy was waiting for them on the ridge. Above him it looked as though the clouds had captured the sun and everything was pink and luminous.

The gang was exhausted by the ride, Jessie included, and as soon as they had secured the wild horses in the holding yard and fed and watered their own, they flopped down by the fire the boy had started and gazed up at the sky. The clouds were moving fast and no cloud was still for long enough that any of them could make it out as any earthly or mythical creature.

Jessie rested her head on her arm and watched the boy preparing their meal by the fire. His beauty, the gang, the clouds, all of it seemed miraculous, all of it incomprehensible.

The next day the rope they had carried back to the camp was strung up on a tree and a pulley; they attached a branch for a handle and a seat and the flying fox was made. The boy went first, launching himself from the ridge, and he flew from one side of the camp to the other. They spent the whole day running back and forth and none of them seemed to be tired from it or even tired from the day before. Jessie watched them from the shade and she loved the boy's expression most of all as he sailed through the air, his eyes as wide as his smile, growing less fearful with each ride.

VI

JACK BROWN AND Barlow set off at first light, the way any expedition should, their packs loaded with supplies, their hats on their heads, rifles slung across their backs. Jack Brown felt fit and ready for it, released from some great tension that had been holding him back from lighting out these past weeks and finding Jessie himself. Barlow seemed edgy in his saddle but the day unfolded in silence and neither man knew what the other was thinking.

It wasn't until halfway into the day that Barlow said,
I need to eat
, and Jack Brown urged him to keep riding till they reached the river. Barlow didn't argue or say anything but fell in behind Jack Brown's horse and followed him closely, in what Jack Brown took to be a sulk.

If I have to stop suddenly your horse's nose will be up my arse.

Barlow slipped further back for a while but then Jack Brown could feel him stepping up close again, and when he couldn't stand it any longer Jack Brown pulled his horse right up and Barlow had to swing his horse out, tearing at its neck suddenly and pulling it wide. Jack Brown rode on. Barlow tried to settle his horse and soon Jack Brown spotted a tree with enough shade for them both to sit down in with some distance from each other.

Riding towards it, Jack Brown could see a poster nailed to the trunk. He dismounted and tore the poster down.

Jessie
, he said and the breath went out of him as his gut turned over.
Fuck
, he said to himself and then he yelled to Barlow,
They've put a fucking bounty on her head
.

Barlow rode up next to Jack Brown and Jack Brown handed him the poster.

It's not legal
, said Barlow.

It doesn't fucking matter. They've named the prize. It's like unleashing dogs on her.

Let's keep our cool
, said Barlow.
We've got to eat, and the horses need to rest.
He dismounted.

This is fucked
, said Jack Brown
. They'll already be out for her. If I wasn't wiping your arse I would have been out here much sooner.

Bullshit
, said Barlow, loosening the straps on his saddle
. There was nothing stopping you going after her from the day she disappeared.

Jack Brown unbuckled his saddlebag and slumped to the ground while his horse took to grazing around him. He unwrapped the loaf of bread he had bought from the cook at the Seven Sisters. It was as heavy as a brick. He tore off a hunk of it and pushed it into his mouth which was wet with saliva, not from hunger but from a sudden feeling of sickness. He chewed with his mouth open and as he chewed he surveyed the field they had ridden across. The long grass was bleached white by the sun and it collapsed as the wind travelled over it and sprang back as the wind turned in front of them.

For the rest of the day Jack Brown set an urgent pace unless they were riding through thick forest. They did not see a living thing, aside from birds that swooped in and stripped the trees as they rode. Jack Brown felt them to be riding in the wake of a storm that had recently passed through and he shuddered to think of the groups of men taking to the mountain like hungry dogs and the murderous intent they carried inside of them.

That night they slid off their horses and walked chafed and bow-legged to set up camp next to the river. Jack Brown limped to the water and dunked his head right in and saw there were bream, silver and fat, feeding at the edges. He fashioned a net by tying his shirt to a stick and caught two of them.

He threw the fish at Barlow.
Here. I'm not gonna be your hunter gatherer and your cook too.

He settled himself by the fire that Barlow had lit and watched as Barlow began to scale the fish. Silver scales sprayed up against his hands and stuck to the shirt sleeves that he hadn't bothered to roll up.

Been to the Sisters lately?
said Barlow.

You just ate their bread.

Did you pay for it?

Actually, you did.

Did you stay?

What business is that of yours, Sergeant?

I just want to know if we should bill the Crown for your fuck.

What can I say? God save the King.

Did the King suck your cock?

Jack Brown lay down, his back against the curve of his saddle. He tipped his hat low till he could see only the flickering light of the fire and Barlow's bare feet stepping around it. He could not ward off the feeling that he should have left sooner, and already he wanted to ditch his companion.

He was woken by Barlow kicking the sole of his boot and handing him a plate of fish and the remainder of the bread, which he had toasted in the fire. The fire was blazing and stacked up like a pyramid. It smoked thick and black and Jack Brown was about to tell Barlow to kick it down and use fewer leaves, for the way it smoked and spat surely signalled their coming. But then he thought better of it. It was better that he forewarn her, signal their slow ascent.

He believed they would not find her if she did not want to be found.

That night he dreamt of her stalking through the caves in the mountains above him—which part of the mountains he could not tell—and he looked for where the sun might be and for some signs, as if even in his dreams he knew to look. Then he saw what surrounded the caves—an impassable ravine filled with the crumpled bodies of horses and men. All of their legs snapped and pointing at angles, like broken trees littered on the ground.

The gangs of men crashed up the mountainside, splitting into groups of four and five, scything through the bush in different directions, paying no heed to existing tracks or openings but all seemingly possessed to forge a course of their own devising. The dog charged up the mountain after them more nimble than a horse. When he finally caught up with one of the packs he got under the feet of a horse which bucked and threw his rider. The man tumbled screaming into a canyon and his screaming and the dog's barking caused other horses to buck until only one man of the party remained in the saddle. That man raised his gun to shoot the dog, which sent it running through the bush in pursuit of another party.

THE MOUNTAIN RANGE was an amphitheatre and the sounds below were delivered up the mountainside through slow and echoing time, but in time enough.

The boy eased himself down from his watch and ran silently through the bush. Barefoot, he padded over turns in the earth and rocks that glittered with granite. He knew the others would be sleeping.

The sounds he had heard were unmistakable. The crashing of the forest, the sound of men on a hunt. These were men made confident only by their numbers and not by the design of their pursuit and they signalled themselves as clearly as spot fires moving up the mountain.

Running, the boy felt spider webs crisscrossing between the lower shrubs and branches and collecting around the bare skin of his arms and face. He did not pause, but kept on running, brushing off the webs as he ran.

The gang all knew of his nightly surveillance. As he did not ride or muster, it was his contribution to the camp. The main danger, he thought, was at night, while they slept. It was surely when the worst things from the valley could move up the mountain undetected.

The sun was just up when he reached the camp and Joe was saddling a horse with Bill.

They're coming.
The boy was breathless.

Who?

There's heaps of them.

Where?

Up from the valley.

Get on.
Joe mounted his horse and pulled the boy up behind him. Bill did not waste time in saddling but followed on her own horse.

They rode to the lookout and, though they could not see them, Joe and Bill heard for themselves the unnatural cracking of branches below as the large party moved up the mountain.

That's the sound of desperate men
, said Joe.

I know this type of man
, said Bill.
He has no god. And he is all the more dangerous to us because, worse than that, he has no law in him or myth to live by.

When Jessie woke, they were all sitting around on the dirt with their heads hanging between their bony knees, wearing the crumpled clothes they had worn the day before and then slept in. Joe was squatting, drawing a map on the ground that looked like two hands crossing over, the fingers interlocking. His face was knotted and serious.

He was saying,
From what we know of the caves and tunnels, we can enter here and come out here, which will bring us to the other side. But while it is narrow and well concealed I cannot say if the horses will travel the whole way through.

What's this?
said Jessie.

There's a gang moving up the mountain, seems they've split into packs. The boy spotted them on his watch this morning. We can't risk them finding us here.

I heard 'em travelling up, miss
, said the boy.
They were making a racket, splitting branches with what sounded like blades and guns and mallets.

Jessie felt sick to her stomach. The thought of violent men discovering the boy, or any of them, was more horror than she could bear to imagine. Whether they were in pursuit of her for Fitz's murder or all of them for the stolen cattle at Phantom Ridge, it did not matter. She would do anything to stop them.

Sit down with us, Jessie
, said Joe.
Help us plan our escape.

There's tunnels out and down and there's a way we can all get clear of them
, said Bill.
We've got enough lead and there's chambers beneath us and we can clear out and take the route that Joe knows. We can hide in there for days and listen to them pass over us or we can press on, we can keep going to the other side of the mountains.