The Burial (6 page)

Soon he heard the sound of a creature moving near him. In itself that was not unusual, but the creature sounded like a horse and he knew that no horses roamed loose in Fitz's forest because nothing of value roamed free under Fitz's reign.

Jack Brown rode through the undergrowth, ducking to avoid the low branches. He could hear the creature tearing up grass and he was almost upon it when he saw its silhouette. The horse reared up. Jack Brown swung down from the saddle and moved in closer, calming the horse with his voice. From its markings he could see it belonged to Fitz. He tossed a rope around its neck and once it was secured the horse made no protest. He mounted his own horse again and led the stray out of the clearing and back through the undergrowth.

He rode on.

Before he reached the edge of the forest, he came across another two of Fitz's horses. There was barely enough length in the rope but he looped a neck-hold for each and secured them. He moved along slowly so there was a stepping length between the horses. They should not be in the forest. He could think of no good reason. He was not heartened by finding them or by the way they stepped like prisoners behind him.

When he reached the first gate of Fitz's paddock Jack Brown thought to lead the horses into the holding yard. The second gate was already open. A few livestock sauntered within the paddock. He rode through the second gate. Remaining on his horse, he closed the gate behind him and let the other horses loose. They scattered in different directions. He kicked his own horse into a gallop and rode fast up the rise.

He was sure his eyes were failing him when he saw the house and he stood up in the stirrups for a better view. As he could make it out, part of the roof was caved in and the other side buckled at strange angles. He pulled up his horse and turned it, one way then another, then he pushed on towards the house.

His concern about what to say to Fitz and how to say it was taken over by thoughts of my mother.
Where is she? Is she safe?

Jack Brown swung down from his horse and stepped on to the veranda. His eyes were not deceiving him.

Jessie!
he called, and then,
Fitz!

He walked through the door that was already open.

Jessie!
he yelled and kept on yelling. But nobody answered.

He walked through the house. His boots crashed against all kinds of things. When he thought he heard some movement, he stopped dead. But then he realised it was the sound of his own moving chaos.

That night he camped in the stable. When he checked the horses he saw that Houdini's lot was empty. He lay down to sleep but despite his exhaustion he hardly slept at all. There were so many scenarios racing through his head, thoughts turning over thoughts.
Was she dead? Was she gone?

He was not on the clear side of the sky at all.

He fell into a tense spell of sleep just before sunrise and when he woke he thought he heard Fitz's voice shouting orders to him from the veranda. He sprang out of bed and brushed himself down and ran up to the house like he would have any other morning. But where every other morning something cringed inside of him at the sight of Fitz, now he cringed at the sight of the house and the sight of him gone.

In the light of the morning Jack Brown could see that most of Fitz's horses and cattle were missing and those that remained were subdued and heavy in the legs, tottering aimlessly as if they had all eaten some stupefying weed.

The house, too, looked like a sick thing with its cowering head. Around its smashed windows and open door was charred and the residue of flames spiralled out to its edges.

Inside was the same mess and tangle Jack Brown had traced the night before. But by daylight he could see there were footprints and the footprints were not his own. They were Fitz's. He was sure of it. They led in towards the cellar and they led back outside.

Jack Brown pulled furniture and other charred things from the opening of the cellar and lowered himself down. He pressed his hands and feet against the sandstone walls and when his feet reached something solid he planted himself on it. He lit a match. The floor was a soup of mud and shards of glass and piles of salt. Against a wall was a shelf lined with cracked jars and sacks piled up, some of them still whole but most split right open.

His eyes adjusted, Jack Brown surveyed the cellar, turning in the small space. He balanced on bricks until he realised that the bricks were balancing on some other thing. He kicked away the rubble and saw what he did not want to see. It was Fitz—or what remained of him. Jack Brown could make out his grimy torso, his arm and the buckle of his belt glinting in the dark.

He pressed both hands against the wall. He thought,
It should not have come to this. Did he kill Jessie first and then kill himself? Is her body here as well?

And then:
I am done for. A black man standing over the remains of his white boss. If I thought justice would not serve me then, I know it will not serve me now.

Jack Brown pulled a sack from the shelf and tore it open. He poured out its contents; he could not tell if it was sugar or salt but he was not about to taste it. He thought,
Salt would preserve him best—but why would I want to preserve him at all?

And just like the old man had done with the dog, Jack Brown opened the sack right up and filled it with his find. But unlike the old man, Jack Brown did not regard Fitz's body as any kind of prize. Fitz was dead. There was no life left in him and there was nothing that Jack Brown could do to reverse it. He dragged the sack up and out of the cellar.

He was still not certain that Jessie was not in the cellar too so he lowered himself back down and lit matches and moved things around until no part of the cellar was unturned. Only then was he certain. She was not there.

But where was she?

He followed the tracks of Fitz's boots, first to the veranda and then out through the mud to the edge of the grass. Jack Brown knew Fitz's prints, the size and weight of them in the dirt, and he knew the length and unevenness of his stride. He pressed his fingers into the indentations in the ground and he knew they were not made by Fitz. He guessed it. Jessie had worn Fitz's boots. She had killed him and she was gone.

Was this what he was to wait for after all?

He mounted his horse with the grim haul and headed back towards the forest.

THE OLD WOMAN got her way. She picked up my mother by the hands; still cursing her, the old man picked up my mother by the feet and they loaded her into the cart next to the dead lamb.

It was a slow ride back to the base of the mountains.

When my mother woke it was dark. She arched her neck back to see the old woman, her hair swinging from side to side as she rode, her horse pulling the weight of the cart, jolting as they moved up the slope.

The moon was still thin but the stars were bright and lit the trees enough to make shadows. As the cart moved through the forest, the shadows passed over it. The cart canted more and more with the slope and my mother could see the path they had already travelled. On that path she could see herself standing, and then she could see that self growing distant. She turned away from it. She trained her eyes between the wooden slats of the cart and out into the forest, but there again she saw herself, or versions of herself, like children running between trees.

Into the Woods. The game they played when the moon was full and later, when they had their courage, when the moon was dark. Their house was not far, but not visible, so the forest was all and their own.

Jessie was a child then, too tall for her age, too wild and too tall, trying to find her father, her sister, her brothers, all of them yelling to her,
I'm here, I'm here
, then running between the trees. She crouched low, held on to a torch, a new thing of light, and turned it sharply in the dark.

I'm here!
A body would leap and weave between the trees.

I'm here!

She would run until she felt her heart exploding.

One night she ran so far that the sounds of them were lost to her and she felt they were gone, and not just gone but gone forever, and the feeling felt real and she could not hold back her sobbing.

Where are you?

Through her tears the trees were doubling and shifting like legged creatures.

Where are you? Is that you?

Her father stepped out from behind a tree in the distance.
Jessie!
he yelled.
I'm here.

She ran to him.

You're crying, my love.

I thought I'd lost you.
She grabbed hold of his arm and wiped her eyes with his sleeve.

Darling
, he said,
you can't lose me.

Her father took her hand and they walked along the broken path until her two brothers and her sister leapt out and said,
We're here!
Then they all walked together, all holding hands, taking turns with the torch, their feet never touching the circle of light that was always ahead.

MY MOTHER did not know what world she was in. She was in and out of feverish dreams and of course I tried to reach her. I could not reach out with hands or feet, so I bawled out,
Mother, there is life! Don't die. Not yet!
And I willed us as one and I imagined it was us riding together hell-bent up the mountain, disappearing into its shadows. All was dark there and we were protected. But even in my dreaming, where I wanted my mother to feel peace, I could only feel her terror—and soon I realised that this was not my dream at all.

My mother was dreaming me back.

In her dream, we were not escaping together into the mountains. She had us in the old woman's cart, but it was not a horse towing us, it was the old woman herself. The cart was bouncing over rocks and my mother stuffed me inside her shirt and opened the latch with her toes and slid out of the cart and then she sprinted into the dark. When she heard the old woman holler she dropped to the ground and we rolled and we rolled until we hit a log. She crawled into it and she held me and told me to be as quiet as I could.

She's gone!
the old woman screeched and then the sound of the cart rattled through the forest with the sound of the dog tearing through.

The dog found us in no time and circled the log. It pushed its snout right in and we could see its teeth and we shrank back and back but there was nowhere to go. The old man grabbed my mother's hair and pulled us out.

You can't escape smelling like that
, he said.

My mother's dreams did not end there. She was scrambling barefoot up the mountain, pursued not by anything that she could name but by looming shapes that moved steadily and changed direction only when she turned to face them.

When she woke, she was lying in a room she did not recognise with a heap of knitted blankets piled upon her. She was sweating all over. The sheets were damp and she kicked them from her and when she raised her hands to rub her eyes she saw her nails had been clipped and shaped and cleaned. There was a silver bracelet around her wrist. She tried to pull it off but it was too small for her hand and it pushed up against her bone and scraped her skin. It felt to her like a handcuff.

She sat up and pressed her feet into the floor and her head felt light and the floor looked to be a long way away. She examined her feet. Her toenails had been clipped too and she had never seen her feet so clean.

She was dressed in a nightgown. Lace fringed her neck and scratched her skin. It was cold out of bed. There was no window in the room but a draught streamed up between the floorboards. A dog barked outside and she could hear the voice of an old man. She remembered the barking and the voice and then the face of the old man leaning over her.

She searched the room for her clothes but could not find them. Aside from under the bed there was nowhere to look. There was nothing in the room except the bed, a kerosene lamp and a chair. She wrapped herself in one of the knitted blankets and opened the door.

She was standing in a sunlit kitchen. The wall facing her was made entirely of window frames, jigsawed together. They rattled in the wind. Outside a stick flew through the air and the dog ran after it. She could see a cleared yard; from the rise of it and the way it was littered with bush rock she guessed she was very near the base of the mountains.

The dog reappeared with the stick in its mouth and the old man walked into view. My mother's first instinct was to hide from him so she crouched beneath the window. But she realised immediately that hiding was a foolish thing because here she was, already in his house, dressed in his wife's nightgown, which meant she had already been found. She stood up slowly and hoped he had not seen her attempt to hide. She tugged the blanket around her shoulders and tied it in a knot at the small of her back so it looked like a shawl. She stood tall, hoping her fear would not reveal itself to the man or the dog.

The old man did see her. Ducking down and rising up and then standing at the window. He took the stick from the dog and pointed it and walked towards her.
Look here
, he said, tapping the stick on the glass.
She's risen from the dead.

His voice warbled in her ear and the sound of it chilled her.

She was standing there, arms folded across her chest, wondering what to do next, when the old woman burst through the door.

Oh, child!

The old woman pushed her back against the door to shut it, and held on to her hair which was twining around her.

Where are my clothes?
said my mother.

With that old blanket around you, you looked like a harpy at the window.
The old woman chuckled.
Only harpies belong outside.

My mother was not amused.
Where are my trousers, my shirt, my boots?

You weren't wearing no boots, child
, said the old woman.
Not when we found you. And you'd made a mess of your clothes. You'd lost your pants and that shirt you had on was no better than a rag.