The Burial (5 page)

He was riding towards her and he was aiming his gun. She dismounted from Houdini and stood in front of him.

You aiming that gun at me?

You've got an imagination,
he said, dropping the gun to his side.

I see you've been busy.

I've been branding your horses.

Well done
, he said
. Come up to the house. I've a present for you.

At the house, Fitz pushed a brown package across the table and Jessie unwrapped it. Inside was a long white cotton dress with a hem of embroidered roses.

Why would I want a dress?
she asked.
I'm perfectly at home in my trousers.

Go and put it on
, Fitz said.

She did not. Instead, she busied herself lighting the fire.

Fitz sat down and put his feet up on the table.
You're looking at a year for each horse.

I haven't stolen any horses
, said Jessie.

Unless there's something wrong with my eyes, half a dozen horses have appeared in the holding yard.

The horses were delivered for you.

But it was you who took delivery of them
.
And I suspect I could track down the owners.

She knew what was coming. All of these months he had been biding his time, unable to accept ‘no'as an answer.

Jessie, you have two options that I can see.

And what are they?

I can take you back to the same gaol I collected you from.

Or?

You can marry me.

My mother chose but it was a false choice. On the same day that Fitz had swayed out from the forest he doubled her back into it. He was dressed in a blue suit and his hair was slicked back and she wore the long white dress. They rode fast beneath low-hanging branches and when Fitz yelled,
Duck!
she did and then she did not. She held up her arms and the branch hooked her but only for a second before she fell to the ground and when she stood up he slapped her.

That afternoon, the justice of the peace—the postmaster—who married them made a note in his book that the bell sleeves on the bride were ripped in places and speckled with blood. No family or friends were present. The bride appeared unsettled but in the end the postmaster took the groom's money and a photo and he did not ask any questions other than
Do you take this man?
and
Do you take this woman?
And they both said,
Yes
, and then they both signed.

BESIDE THE RIVER my mother blacked out again. The old man rolled a cigarette while the old woman dropped to her knees and began unwrapping the blanket to determine the source of my mother's bleeding.

The old woman was muttering,
I will save you, I will save you
, which irritated the old man exceedingly.

Woman!
he screamed finally.
She's too far gone. And if she lives she'll surely be trouble.

I will not leave her
, said the old woman, and she was calm and defiant and she kept about what she was doing.

She's just another mouth for me to feed
, said the old man. He sat down on the sand and his dog sat down beside him.

The old woman stood up and raised a crooked finger to the old man.
All of these years in this miserable place I have prayed for the company of someone other than you and here she is. I am taking her.

The old woman shuffled over to the river to wet her handkerchief to clean up my mother.

She's of no value
, said the old man, sucking in his breath. Then he lit his cigarette and poked the air with it, pronouncing,
Woman, nothing is of value in this world if it does not fight.

The old woman was not listening. She was slightly deaf anyway and distracted by my mother's trousers, which were still billowing and bloody in the shallows of the river. She reached after them with a stick.

While the old woman's back was turned the old man leant in over my mother to examine her. Her brow was heavy and her jaw was sharp and he did not like the look of her. Her dark hair fanned out in a tangle around her and for all he knew she could be some runaway, some murderer—which, in fact, she was.

He crouched right over her and blew smoke into her face.

My mother opened her eyes and saw the old man and she did not know what he was but she knew he was danger. She took a gurgling breath and she coughed up something from the depths of her. And then she spat it dead centre between the old man's eyes.

The old man went hurtling back, falling onto his dog, who was whimpering and howling. The old man hooked his arm around the dog's neck and said,
Don't worry your mongrel head. If she does not die here, I will kill her.

MORNING OF MY birth, the sounds of Fitz were indistinguishable against the rain. He was already scraping his boots against the steps before my mother realised he was there.

She had grown tired in her waiting, but on hearing him she was suddenly awake, suddenly standing on her chair, all seven months pregnant of her, steadying herself against the wall as Fitz wrestled with the handle of the door.

He flung the door open. It hit the edge of the chair and she could see him pitching back and forth and then there was no time for hesitating.

Her anger surged within her and pulsed through the wooden handle of the axe, and as Fitz lurched forward she threw the axe across his back and he was so drunk he fell down immediately. He roared and she leapt down from the chair before he could get up and she swung the axe down again across his back and she did not stop swinging till she was certain that he could not walk or lift himself up from the ground ever again.

Not
every
day is a good day to be born and whatever bright stars were concealed by clouds that morning and whatever their angle they did not bode well for me. As my mother took the axe to my father a wave rose inside of her and pushed me up and turned me over till I felt sick and deaf to everything. Till I grew cold. When I could not hear her heartbeat I panicked. I kicked and twisted and dug my heels in where I could and then I felt her drop to her knees and, worse, I felt the wild sea inside of her spill out.

My birth, though too soon, was not an agony. I put all of my weight onto my head and bore down. My mother moved around me and I was a snake sliding out of old skin. And then I thought I heard bells ringing and I fell into the bells of her hands and that was my birth.

I opened my eyes and thought,
Is this life?

I saw my poor mother gasp at the sight of me. There was just enough light to make me out and I felt her mouth around my mouth and her breathing into me and then spitting out all of that wild sea I had drunk in. And then she shook me from side to side and covered my mouth with her mouth again. And then she grabbed me by the feet and swung me around and smacked my arse, and I thought,
Fuck, Houdini! What life is this?

Then I heard my mother sobbing. She held me in her arms for a while and then she carried me over to my father's view. I looked into his dark eyes and I saw them grow wide and then I heard a crack as his head hit the floor.

I saw my reflection in his eyes. Covered in fur, unlovely, I do believe it was the sight of me that finally killed him.

My mother tried to feed me milk from her breast but no milk would come. She put hot washers over her chest and then she tried to feed me again. But I could not breathe and I could not feed so she bathed me in warm water while my father grew cold at her feet. And then she bundled me up in a sheet and tied me to her before she smashed the gun cabinet with the axe and took out a rifle. She dragged Fitz to the opening of the cellar and then, with her feet, she rolled him in. She poured kerosene into the mouth of it and then into every dark corner of the house. She threw a match into the cellar and then match after match until it threw back flames. And then with what was left of the kerosene she drenched those armchairs and set them ablaze.

The flames leapt up and the sound was like Fitz on a tirade. But we were safe and already outside. I clung to her as she saddled her horse, packed a blanket, a gun, a knife.

The rain was upon us. We could hardly see where we were going. We rode anyway.

II

AT BEST, IF the weather held, Jack Brown was a day's ride from Fitz's place.

He had been riding since dawn. Finally, just as the sun was setting, he had in his bleary sights those rocks as perfect as squares which signalled to him the end of the northern range and the beginning of the valley. He rode on and the land levelled out and the rocks overlapped like scales on some creature's back. Trees fell away on either side, as if it had cleared a path to find its rest, its tail winding down into the valley, disappearing into darkness.

Jack Brown rode on through the night. The sky gave enough light so he could just make out the ground, which was a litter of branches, and he stepped his horse over them and moved into clearings where he could.

He was desperate to get to her.

He had made the delivery, wound through the gorges he had come to know so well, three weeks'riding with stock in tow, one week back without. He had not lost one sturdy cow. His job was done. Fitz should be happy with that.

He had rehearsed it so many times on so many rides—what it would be to finally stand up to Fitz, to ask to be paid, to quit. Jessie had warned him that with Fitz there could be no reasoning, that the only way out was to escape, or he would most certainly have them both thrown in gaol. They must wait was what she had said. But his question now was his question then:
Wait for what?

In his three years in the valley, Jack Brown had herded and branded stolen cattle for Fitz, unknowingly and then knowingly. Until Fitz discovered her pregnancy, Jessie was there for every ride and for every heist. Fitz had kept his hands clean of it all and threatened to incriminate them both if ever their loyalty wavered.

But there was no loyalty because there was no freedom. There was only an oppressive bind. Fitz held on to a whole stable of horses as evidence of their crimes. Jack Brown knew that a black man had no more power than a convict woman, maybe less, and they could never plead a case of blackmail or rely on white man's justice. But as much as he did not want to be imprisoned or see Jessie imprisoned again, he also did not want to be Fitz's captive or a fugitive. He held out for the chance to reason with him, man to man.

Over the long ride, when Jack Brown played it in his head, he did see a man. It was the man of himself, riding through Fitz's forest, having delivered a hundred head of cattle; a man fully possessed of his own power, his own worth. He would arrive at Fitz's homestead, walk surely up the steps, remove his hat. He would be tall at the door and stand strong. He would shake Fitz's hand and they would bargain for his freedom and for Jessie's.

But he did not know what to bargain with. And as often as he played it, it never came to him what to say or how to say it. He only hoped that the man of himself, in the moment of his facing Fitz, would truly know his worth and the right words would flood his tongue, just as prayers come to desperate men when they need them.

As he rode into the valley a storm rolled down from the northern range and clouds turned over themselves like rabbits chasing their own tails. Jack Brown took in the vastness of it and saw that there were two distinct skies, one that was churning and one that was not. He was glad to be on this side of it.

He had covered a lot of ground in good time and when he finally reached Fitz's forest the sun was going down again, and though his body felt spent his mind was clear. He was certain of what he had to do next.

He rode into the thick of the forest. The last of the sunlight moved around him in giddy, skipping lots until it was gone completely. The darkness of the forest did not bother him. He had ridden through it so many times that he could have made his way with his eyes closed, just by the smell of it and the weight and drift of air on his skin.