The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger (2 page)

Only the first bit made any sense to Billy. ‘What if no one takes me?’

The foreman stood back and shrugged. ‘Then you goes to government work, cutting stone or building roads. At least you get fed regular, down here in Sydney Town at any rate, even though it means gettin’ locked up in the barracks instead of out on a farm. It’s worse if you gets government work out in the bush. Aye, terrible bad that can be. Good luck, lad.’

He strode across the gangplank.

Billy peered through the too-bright light at the dock. Jem was shuffling between the two other convicts, dirty, pale, too weak to lift their feet up almost. Suddenly Jem looked back at Billy. ‘Remember!’ he mouthed. ‘Remember!’

Billy nodded. He lifted his hand. They’d find each other somehow. They had to!

His legs trembled, but he had to keep standing. Had to cling on to the one thing he now knew about how this place worked. Look strong. Get chosen by a farmer, so he weren’t locked up again. If he were locked up he wouldn’t be able to find Jem.

Other men were on the deck now. They were dressed much like the first man, the same strange hats, the beards, and the boots. Were they foremen too? They walked up and down the rows of convicts, pointing to the biggest and strongest.

None of them pointed at Billy. He tried to stand straight, but it were hard, after all those months below. An’ even back in London, he’d always been a small ‘un.

A farm—a farm where there might be horses. A farm, with forest…or, what had Jem called it?
bush
around. There’d be a chance to escape on a farm. He could steal one o’ the horses easy, meet up with Jem.

Someone had to choose him for farm work! He couldn’t face being locked up again. Not after the darkness of the ship, the rats in gaol, the memory of the workhouse stink…

Suddenly desperate, he put out his hand and touched the arm of the man passing.

Look them in the eye
, Master Higgins had said.
Flatties always think you’re tellin’ the truth if you look them in the eye. Sound respectful.
Billy put everything he had into the plea. He looked up unblinking into the man’s brown eyes.

‘Please, sir. I’ll work hard, I promise I will.’

The man turned. He was short—not much taller than Billy—but strong-looking, with grey hair brushed back neatly under his hat and a long grey moustache, but a clean-shaven chin. Good boots—you could tell a lot about a cove from his boots. These were made to fit, by the look of them, and well polished.

‘Will you?’ The voice was soft, considering. The dark eyes stared at him. Billy fought to keep from looking down. It was like this man could see into him. See who he really was.

‘Yes, sir.’ Billy tried to sound firm, sincere.

‘Let’s look at your teeth then.’

Billy blinked, but opened his mouth obediently.

The older man peered at Billy’s mouth. ‘Not bad. No point taking a lad who can’t chew meat and potatoes out into the bush. Had any experience with sheep?’

For a moment he was going to say yes. By the time they found out the only thing he’d ever done with a sheep was to eat a bit in stew it would be too late to
send him back. How hard could it be to see to sheep? But somehow he couldn’t lie to this man.

‘No, sir.’

The man smiled. Suddenly Billy knew that if he’d said yes he’d have walked on, leaving him there on the deck.

‘Any trade?’

Billy met his eyes—met them easily now. ‘Not one that would be any use on a farm.’

‘You’re a town lad then?’

Once there’d been fields around their cottage…Billy shut his mind to the memories. He’d done good in town, ha’n’t he? That’s who he were now. ‘Yes.’

‘A pity.’ The man’s voice was gentle. He began to walk away.

Billy stared. He should have lied…he should have…He darted forward before any of the crew could stop him, and touched the man’s arm again. ‘Sir, I’m good with horses.’

The man stopped. ‘Are you now?’

‘Yes.’ Billy grinned, suddenly confident. ‘I’m no groom, sir, I won’t tell you a lie. But people says I got good hands. Horses like me. I can quiet ‘em down.’

‘But you’ve never worked with them?’

‘Not so much as I’d like. But I can ride, and drive a cart.’

The man looked thoughtful. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Billy Marks, sir.’

‘Can you read, Billy Marks?’

‘Yes, sir. A bit.’ Ma had taught him to read. So long ago…He added, ‘I’m a bit rusty now. But I can read a newspaper.’

The old man nodded. ‘Wait by the gangplank, Billy Marks.’

It had taken all his strength to keep upright; he felt he would fall into a puddle on the deck if he had to take another step. But he had to keep going for a little longer now. ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Sir…what’s your name, sir? Who will I be workin’ for?’

‘My name is Roman John. I’m foreman at one of the Reverend Hassall’s farms.’

‘Thank you, Mr John. I’ll work hard. I promise.’ To his surprise he almost meant it.

Roman John nodded. ‘We’ll see. This is your second chance, Mr Marks. Everyone deserves a second chance. Let’s see what use you make of yours.’

He walked on, down the lines of convicts, assessing again.

Billy walked unsteadily over to the gangplank, and leant against the rail. He looked over at the dock: already Jem’s cart had vanished.

But Billy would remember. Somehow he’d find Jem again. They’d be bushrangers, roaming the mountains. On the bridle con, just like Flash Harry.

Yes, this was his second chance.

Day after day we stood there. The water grew thick and foul. Some of the stranger horses tried to stop the others drinking, but I nipped the hindquarters of any who tried to take control. That water belonged to us all.

I didn’t know what it was to be a king, when I fought Highest. But now I knew what a king’s duty had to be.

A king should protect his mob.

Every few days the men pushed more horses into our canyon. Hunger nibbled at my belly. The mares nursing foals grew thin.

And then one day it changed.

I had been standing, half asleep, when the air behind me ripped apart.

Men whipped their long hard tails, waving and cracking them about their heads. The fence that had contained us was gone.

Were we free?

The horses at the edge began to run, and then they screamed. More men lashed them, these ones on horseback. For long moments all was yelling, foals neighing for their mothers, long high cracks…

And then I realised what was happening. We were moving—but we were not free. The men on horses surrounded the whole mob of us. They whipped our flanks if we tried to break away.

I pushed my way to the edge of the mob. The other horses parted before me. I was bigger than them all. I had grown since I fought Highest.

‘Oi oi oi oi oi!’ one of the men yelled. The air sang above my head. The strap bit deep into my side, but I had seen my chance. If I could lead the mob up that gully we’d be free. I broke into a canter, and then a gallop. My legs were stiff, after moving so little for so long, but I forced them forward.

Were the others following me? I could hear hoofbeats. The whip thing shouted again. My back stung. I could feel blood flow down my coat. I put my head down and began to gallop.

Another sting, and then another. Horses surrounded me: not my horses. These ones had men on their backs, the whips lashing back and forth. I stopped, swivelling my ears, twisting from side to side, trying to work out where to go.

But there was no way out. I trotted on with my head down as, slowly, they forced me back into the mob.

And so we plodded forward through the trees, into the world of men.

They let us stop to drink by a river, the water curling through wide banks of sand, too deep to wade through and escape. They let us ramble along the bank and graze. It was good to taste fresh grass again, not to be crammed together in the canyon.

The shadows lengthened. It seemed we were to stay here for the night; the river a barrier on one side, and men on horses prowling around us, stopping us from straying too far. By now all of us knew what the sting of the whip things was like.

I lifted my head and called the others of our mob to me. We had been separated in the crush during the day. There was comfort in familiar smells, the foals nudging at their mothers for more milk. The sound of munching was a comfort too, and the gentle slip of water. Far off I could hear ducks complaining about our noise.

A fire flared in the darkness. For a moment I felt edgy, wondering if it would spread. But the shadows of men surrounded it. It seemed the men could keep fire contained, just like they ruled us.

The moon rose. We grazed and dozed and grazed again.

Then in the morning we began to walk once more.

Day after day we walked. It was a slow pace. Even the foals could keep up. We stopped to drink, to eat. After a while even I stopped trying to get away. Walking, eating, walking…

I lost myself in the rhythm of our days.

There were only two other people in the dray, though it were pulled by nine big bullocks; the foreman, Roman John, and the bullock driver, who didn’t seem to have a name, and only spoke to the bullocks—in a stream of worse swearin’ than Billy had ever heard back at Mr Higgins’s. He lashed his whip across the backs of his cattle. Two driver’s assistants walked beside the dray, prodding at the great beasts with whips and rods.

The other convicts had gone on a cart pulled by a pair of dappled draught horses. Reverend Hassall, it seemed, owned several properties, but only one farm needed more workmen, and it wasn’t the one Roman John was taking Billy to.

‘Sir? Where they goin’?’ Billy tried to keep his voice steady. Even the walk to the dray had exhausted him, and that steady lash of sunlight didn’t help either.

Roman John hooked up a rope that had worked loose before he replied. The dray was heavily loaded.
Casks and wooden boxes were lashed down, so they didn’t slide as the dray lurched through the ruts in the cobbles. ‘They’re off to Parramatta.’

‘What about us?’

‘Out over the mountains.’

‘What mountains?’

‘The Blue Mountains.’

Is that their name, wondered Billy, or is the mountains really blue?

Roman John checked the rope again, then settled down beside Billy, leaning back against what felt like a sack o’ potatoes or turnips. ‘Right, this is what you need to know. You work, and you’ll get fed, and a place to sleep, and clothes when yours wear out. If you don’t work you’ll get the whip—’

‘Who’ll do the whippin’?’

‘Me,’ said Roman John evenly. ‘I don’t tolerate slackers, boy. If you steal or try to run they’ll hang you—not me, but the magistrate. Also: watch out for snakes. They’re fast and there are a lot of them and they can kill you fast. Watch out for spiders in your clothes, the shiny crawlers that live in holes
and
the black ones with red backs. They’ll kill you faster than the snakes. Stay off the rum. Most of it’s hooch. It’ll send you blind or mad. And don’t think you can hide out in the bush. Most who try that end up dead.’

‘The peelers get ‘em?’

Roman John’s lips parted in an almost-smile. ‘No. Just the bush. They die of thirst or madness.’

‘Oh,’ said Billy. There didn’t seem much else to say. He looked out at Sydney Town instead. His eyes were almost used to the light now, though they still watered so things were blurred.

The bullocks slowly dragged the dray up the road from the harbour. The hill was steep at first, and made the bullocks strain. There were houses on either side, mostly terraces like he’d known back home, but some fine houses too. Ragged children with grubby faces yelled as they passed. One of the boys threw a stone. A couple of mothers looked up warily as the bullocks passed, then went back to their chat. Just like home, thought Billy, though most of the spratts looked better fed and not as pale. Even if they wore rags at least they weren’t all pinched with cold.

The birds scratching at the horse and bullock droppings in the street were different too: great swarms of red and green or white birds instead of sparrows and pigeons.

Most of the trees in the gardens were fruit trees from home, but there were a few of the ‘bush’ trees, blue-green with high thin tops. The smoke from the chimneys smelt different too. Wood smoke, he reckoned, not coke or coal like London. You could hardly see it against the too-blue sky once it left the chimneys.

Here and there people with dark skins and black hair, their feet bare and their clothes in rags, squatted against fences. Billy looked at them curiously. He’d heard there were naked savages called Indians in New South Wales. But the rags these people wore were the remains of clothes you’d see on any East London street.

At first the street was filled with traffic: bullock drays like their own, carts and horses. The horses looked better fed than most of the ones Billy had known. Most of ‘em were good quality nags, draught
horses with good strong hocks, or gentlemen’s hacks well groomed and shiny. Billy tried to see Jem’s cart among the others, but it was either too far ahead or had gone up one of the side roads.

The houses grew grander the further they travelled. They had gardens with flowers in ‘em now, and paddocks for horses or milk cows or goats. Dogs barked; horses looked curiously over sapling fences.

The bullocks plodded hypnotically. Billy’s eyes closed. He didn’t want to sleep; after so many months of blackness he wanted to drink in everything he could see and smell and hear. But his body was weak.

He slept.

Dusk was falling when he opened his eyes again. He’d been pillowed on the lumpy sacks. He felt stiff; his eyes were sore; his body ached; and his skin felt hot from so much sunlight.

But the air were cool. It smelt different from the harbour here, of trees and bullocks, not the salt smell of the sea and whale oil from the ships. He sat up and stretched.

The dray were no longer moving. The bullocks had been unhitched, and were drinking at a stream. He could see a hut not far away, with smoke coming from its chimney. There were other drays stopped in front of them and behind, the animals grazing or drinking.

Where were Roman John? And then he saw him, sitting at a small fire by the dray.

‘Finally woke up, have you? It’s all right, boy. It’ll take you a few weeks to get your strength back. You’re young, at least. Some of the older men never get over the voyage. Hungry?’

Billy nodded, and slid off the dray. His legs still felt unsteady. He sat next to the welcome warmth of the flames. The fire smelt odd. It must be the wood, he thought. A different land, and different trees.

‘Where are we?’

‘Springwood. We camp here for the night. The animals need to be fresh for the haul up the mountain tomorrow. Here.’ Roman John used a stick to poke something from the edge of the fire toward him.

It was a potato, the skin black but the inside warm and floury. If it had been cooler he’d have gulped it down. Billy nibbled it, tossing it from hand to hand so it didn’t burn him, grateful for both the heat and food.

‘Plenty more.’ Roman John poked another across to him. ‘I put in enough for breakfast and tomorrow’s lunch too. Can’t be bothered making damper.’ He nodded at the hut. ‘The driver’s in there, and more fool him. His plate of stew and tankard of rotgut’ll cost him as much as a good sow, then as soon as he’s drunk they’ll try to pick his pockets. We’re better off out here, where I can keep an eye on the dray.’

Billy nodded. He wondered if there were aught in the driver’s pockets worth nabbing. But they’d know it were him, sure as eggs. He felt his eyes closing again.

‘Sleep, boy. There’s empty sacks. Wrap yourself up and get underneath the dray. Reckon it’s going to rain tonight.’ He sighed. ‘Just what we don’t need—rain and mountains. But you can’t choose the weather. I’ll sit here a while before I join you.’

A strange bird was sitting on a branch laughing at him. Billy rubbed his eyes and peered out from under the dray. Was he on the ship still, dreaming in the darkness? But there the bird was, white and brown, poking its beak up at the sky. And the damp feeling was wet sacks underneath him, not seawater. The overseer had been right. It must have rained. He began to roll out from under the dray, then froze.

Snake.

It was black, with a flash of red on its belly. It lay like a stick, unmoving, only a few feet away. But no stick had eyes like that.

Snakes here could kill you…but Roman John hadn’t said what to do when you woke up with one. If he moved again it might strike. Should he just lie here, and hope it slithered away?

Instead he rolled swiftly out the other side, then stood up. ‘Snake!’ he yelled.

Roman John peered down from the dray.

‘Where?’

Billy pointed. But it had gone.

‘What colour?’

‘Red ‘n’ black’.

‘Not too bad. More scared of you than you of it. It’s the browns and tigers that go for you. Tigers won’t let go, either, just keep pumping poison. Come on. The driver’s almost ready, and almost sober too. Hop on.’

It was slow going up the mountains. They may have looked blue in the distance, but here they were green and mud. The mist turned to drizzle then to a steady soaking rain. Billy sat wrapped in the wet sacks, trying to ignore the water dripping down his face.

At last the clouds seeped away. Suddenly the sun was back again, almost as hot as the day before. Steam rose from the track, and from the sacks too.

‘Here.’ Roman John passed Billy some cold black potatoes, then handed a couple to the driver. The driver grunted his thanks.

There were about a dozen drays in front of and behind them now, some drawn by only a couple of bullocks, others heavy laden, with great teams of twenty animals, and men on either side urging them to keep in line with whips and sticks. Horses strained in front of lighter carts and, once, a mail carriage passed, top-hatted passengers sitting inside in comfort while the horses panted at a canter. Damp dogs ran from dray to dray, barking at each other and the bullocks, rolling in the horse dung, and darting after wallabies, strange hopping beasts that looked out at them startled from the brush. The bullock drivers lashed their beasts, and swore. They had more swear words than even Blue Jimmy back home. They also had fewer teeth, so it was hard to make out what words they used.

The thought of Blue Jimmy gave him a pang. Home, in the warm attic…

But would he really rather be there, in the smoky streets, than here? Birds sang like tiny bells around them. All he had to do was lounge in the dray, and eat potatoes.

He blinked at the thought. O’ course he’d rather be back home! The streets he knew, the flatties with pockets to be picked. What were Jem doing now?

Suddenly the dray in front stopped. Billy looked up. They’d come to a block of huts. Men in muddy rags
huddled on blocks of wood. One ran up and held out a skeletal hand. ‘Tobacco, maties?’ he wheedled.

Roman John shook his head. The bullock driver swore, as did his helpers. The man slunk over to another dray.

‘Can’t offer him anything,’ said Roman John quietly, ‘or we’d have them all wanting a handout.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Road gang.’

‘Convicts?’

Roman John nodded.

Billy shivered. This is what he might have been, if Roman John hadn’t taken him—ragged, starved, his callused hands blue-tipped with cold.

‘Why’ve we stopped?’

‘This is Soldier’s Pinch. Some poor soldier got his foot crushed here, when a wheel ran over it. It’s downhill from here.’

‘Going down is easier than going up, ain’t it?’ asked Billy.

‘No,’ said Roman John.

The rain seeped down on them again: thin rain, cold as snow and twice as wet. The bullock drivers were silent. This road was too bad even to curse. It was almost vertical, so steep that even he and Roman John needed sticks to stop them sliding in the mud.

It was three miles down to the bottom of the slope. Billy and Roman John waited in the drizzle as the first dray began to slide down the sloping track, half its bullocks yoked behind and the wheels locked to try to slow the whole thing down.

Billy peered through the thickening mist. At times the bullocks were knee-deep in mud. Even the dogs walked silently now, as though they knew that the slightest slip might mean disaster.

Suddenly there was a yell, not far from where they stood. Billy ran after Roman John.

At first all he could see was mud…but now the mud was moving, a struggling muddle of animals and, suddenly, another colour.

Blood.

Bullockies slid down toward them, yelling instructions to each other, somehow working out how in the heaving mass to cut the tethers to let the animals free. One by one the bullocks staggered to their feet, lowing, trying to find firm ground to stand on. Billy looked for the driver…

He felt Roman John grab his arm. ‘Come away, boy. Now.’

‘But—’

‘We can be no help here. His mates will sit with him. All you or I can do is let the man die without faces gawping down on him.’

Billy followed Roman John. It was raining heavily now. The water made a wall around him so that it was impossible to make out more than a few feet of mud and greenery. He kept seeing the muddy stumps where the driver’s legs had been.

What was this country, where even driving down a road in a bullock dray could kill you?