The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger (3 page)

It took the rest of the day before their own dray reached the bottom. Roman John let out a sigh. ‘They say ghosts haunt this road. Ghosts of those who built it, ghosts of those who died along it.’

Billy looked around at the mist and darkening shadows. ‘Are there really ghosts?’

‘Oh, yes. Not the sort that wail in white and go
boo.
But the pain and the misery—yes, you can feel that all right. Or else you should.’

It was too damp that night to light a fire. They ate cold potatoes, and slept, wrapped again in hessian sacks. There were no ghosts, just the lowing of the bullocks, and the sad singing around the fire of the bullocky’s companions, mourning his loss with a keg of rum—the only way they knew how.

Three days after that they left the road—muddy and rutted as it was—and headed out onto what was hardly even a track, just axe marks on the trees to show the way.

‘Two more days and we’ll be there,’ said Roman John, stretching. ‘Ah, all this jolting makes my back ache. But at least the food has lasted us this time.’ He patted the sack of potatoes. ‘Should see us there with some to spare.’

But where is there? thought Billy. And where was Jem?

It was mid-afternoon when I broke free.

The men had pushed us hard all day. It was dry country, the grass burnt by summer’s heat. Most of the mares plodded, their hides dusty. I took my usual place behind the others, watching for danger.

But danger was all around us. The men, with their whips, and their horses who did their bidding, instead of running free as we had done.

At last we came to a stream, dry like the others, except for a few small holes that smelt of wallaby and possum. I watched the men stretch their white stuff between the trees to stop us getting away. They no longer used brush fencing now we were so used to staying all together.

Most horses follow each other. That is why each mob has a boss mare, who leads the way. That’s why each mob has a king, like me.

A horse who will fight to get away.

This was my chance. If I could get over that white barrier I might get free. And where I led, perhaps the rest would follow…

I eyed the barrier. No, I couldn’t leap over it—there was no room to jump properly with all the other horses around. But now I looked at it more closely the white stuff looked as fragile as a thorn-bush branch. I could push through branches. Why not through this? Why had I never looked properly at it before?

Because I had been scared and shocked. Because I too had followed the others, assuming we couldn’t get away.

I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Could I do it? I pawed the ground, tossed my head and snorted, and started trotting around the enclosure. The other horses shifted uneasily.

I neighed a warning to White Foot and the others. My own mob looked up, preparing to follow my lead. Even some of the others saw me as their King now. I broke into a canter, did a twisting buck, then turned and galloped from the end of our enclosure toward the barrier.

Nearer…nearer…my chest met the white stuff. It snapped.

I was free!

I felt like trumpeting in triumph but there was no time. I had to get clear before the men could catch me on their horses! Behind me I could hear others following. I slowed to let them pass. Not as many as I’d hoped. But there went White Foot, still leading the way, and her half-grown foal too. There went my other mares…

The men on horses were busy lashing at the others
to keep them back, and tying up the white stuff again. I wished the others had the courage to follow me, but I couldn’t mourn them now, or even call them to follow. Two of the men began to ride in my direction, their whips lashing through the air. One had long grey whiskers, and one a red beard.

A whip stung my hindquarters. I galloped after the others, trusting White Foot to find the clearest way. Once again we had the advantage, for the horses following us had men on their backs. They would tire before we did.

Our hoofs thundered on the heat-hard ground. Dust rose about us, dirt and powdered grass. A bang ripped the air behind me. It smelt like lightning.

I heard a yell behind me. ‘Aim for the horse in front!’

Another bang. White Foot fell. Blood gushed from her side. A hole had opened there. Why? How? For a second she struggled to get up, then her eyes glazed, and she lay still.

Her foal screamed in terror. It skittered around her, showing the whites of its eyes. The other horses halted.

The bang came again. Another horse shuddered to the ground. She writhed in the dust, trying frantically to run again, then lay back, panting, as her blood welled.

I cantered around the fallen horses, tossing my head. The men and their mounts circled us, whips lashing. The man with grey whiskers yelled, ‘I’ll shoot the big white one! He’s the ringleader!’ He pointed something long and thin at me.

‘No!’ The man with the red beard reined his horse in next to Grey Whiskers, and pushed the long thing
away. ‘He’s magnificent! He’ll fetch a hundred pounds at least.’

‘If you can break him.’

Red Beard showed his teeth. ‘I can break any horse.’

I cantered around White Foot, trembling and snorting, smelling her blood. I could protect her from dingoes, from native cats; I could scare eagles away from her foals. But now I didn’t even know how she had been hurt.

I knew who had done it though. It was men.

I reared. I hated them. I hated every man. I hadn’t hated Highest. That had been an honourable fight, horse to horse. Whatever had happened here had no honour. It was bad.

Around me the other horses milled, whinnying and wondering what to do.

But I couldn’t lead them now.

White Foot was dead because I had tried to lead us all to freedom.

Billy had been in the shepherd’s hut for three months, and all he’d seen were sheep.

Oh, there’d been roos, great mobs of them, and furry bears up in the trees. But mostly his life had been sheep. Watching sheep, eating sheep, stopping sheep from straying, protecting sheep from dingoes. In this land with few fences the lead sheep were all ‘belled’ so that the shepherd could find them to round them up, and keep them more or less as one mob. Sometimes he thought he’d hear sheep bells ringing his whole life.

It was a long way from the fields of home, enclosed for hundreds of years, their neat stone walls so old that flowers grew in their crevices.

There were few flowers here. There were dry yellow ones, from last summer maybe, and now in spring some of the gum trees were blooming. He could smell honey, and hear the heavy hum of bees under the
sound of bells. One of the men back at the farm had said that bees here didn’t sting, but Billy didn’t want to rob a wild hive and find out that he was wrong.

A cloud of stinging bees could kill you, just like the snakes, the spiders, the rum and the roads.

He didn’t want to die. More than that—he didn’t want to die here alone.

At least he’d been given a shepherd’s crook, to grab at the sheep’s necks and haul them in the right direction. He had a knife too, and even an old battered pistol to shoot the dingoes, if they came too near, or bushrangers or natives if they attacked, or to shoot a roo to eat. Sheep cost money, but roo meat was free, if you didn’t count the bit of powder needed to load your pistol. He only bothered with the roos’ tails, roasting them over the fire outside his hut, eating them with damper and a bit of treacle. He’d told Roman John he knew how to shoot (trust Master Higgins to learn any new boy that) but he’d been surprised he was trusted with a firearm.

Roman John had shrugged. ‘You’ll soon run out of lead and powder if you go bush. Just make sure you keep the powder dry. Damp powder makes pistols explode.’

Even your own pistol could kill you here.

Billy didn’t mind the dingoes—much: their howling could drive you mad at night. He didn’t even mind the sheep. For the first time in his life he had all the meat he could eat, all the lambs’ tails and mutton from old sheep that’d died. He was ordered to cut the wool away from the bodies; wool was more precious than meat. Wool could be shipped and sold in England; meat only lasted a day or two even in
winter before it went bad, if you didn’t have enough salt to preserve it.

The food, exercise and fresh air had made him strong again after the weakness of the voyage. He wondered hopefully if the meat might make him grow taller too, but his trousers didn’t seem any shorter on his legs.

At first his skin burnt and blistered. He’d plaited himself a big wide hat, like the other men’s, using bark that peeled off in great sheets from some of the trees. ‘Cabbage-tree’ leaves made better hats, but there were none around his hut.

The hut wasn’t flash, just poles in the ground with bark walls and roof, and more poles on top to stop the bark blowing away, and a fireplace marked out with rocks in front.

The bark leaked when it rained, but Billy was warm enough under his sheepskins, though they stank a bit. The strange dull trees dropped endless wood for fires; he had to keep piling it on, for he had no flint or any way to make a spark if his fire went out. Raw meat and cold flour and water…it was threat enough to make him heave a big log on his fire before he went inside to bed, and to hurry out to put twigs and dry branches on the coals as soon as he woke up.

But he’d got used to that. Got used to the old man possum that tried to steal his breakfast. Found he was even starting to enjoy the bush around him, sweet air you could breathe deep instead of choking on, birds yakking at him from the branches till he threw them crumbs.

It was the loneliness that killed you.

All his life there had been people. Pallets crowded together at the workhouse (he shut his mind to the years before that). The friendship in Master Higgins’s attic, him and Jem with their bed rolls next to each other, then the prison and the ship…he’d longed to have a bit o’ peace in those days.

But now.

He’d started talkin’ to the sheep. Singin’, just to hear a human voice. At times he’d reckoned he could hear voices, had leapt up hoping someone were comin’. But it was just a bird, or a sheep
baa
ing…

Which was why now, when he heard the yell, he just sat there, holding the branch with the dough wrapped round it over the coals of the fire. Sinkers were better’n damper, in his opinion: easier to make and quicker, and not as heavy in your belly. A bit o’ treacle to cover the sour taste of weevils in the flour, and—

‘You deaf or what? I bin yelling fer an hour!’

The man stood with his hands on his hips. Billy recognised him from back at the farm: one of the men who shared the long stone barracks building, convicts or old lags who’d been freed, he didn’t know which. It didn’t seem to matter out here whether a man had served his sentence or not. What was his name? Gummy Jake, that was it.

Billy stood up. ‘Sorry. Been so long since I heard anyone.’

The man grinned, showing his hard black toothless gums. ‘Know what you mean, matey. You got to approach some of the coves gently like, in case they blow yer head off. Which is why I called out to you. You ain’t barmy yet though, I reckons.’

‘No,’ said Billy. ‘Not yet.’

Jake sat down next to him. ‘Sent me out ter help you bring ‘em in fer shearing.’ He yawned. ‘Do it termorra. Too far to take ‘em tonight.’ He eyed the sinker. ‘Got any o’ that to spare?’

Billy handed the stick to him, and went to mix more flour and water. People. Buildings. Voices other than sheep…

He found that he was trembling.

They were about halfway back, lugging the wool Billy had taken from the dead sheep, pushing the live ones in front of them and keeping an eye out for stragglers, when the thought occurred to him.

Why go back at all?

He had his pistol, and enough powder for at least another thirty shots. There was food back at the hut. He could get to the road, hold up travellers like Flash Jim…

And then what? Run away on his two legs, while they chased after him on horseback?

He needed a horse.

There were horses back at the farm.

Jake gave a yell. ‘Hey, matey. Come look at this!’

Billy wound his way through the mob of sheep, the ewes bleating and hunting for lost lambs, the wethers bending down to hunt for grass. ‘What is it?’

‘Must be old Crookshanks! He were out at the hut afore you. Lost half the sheep afore we found he were gone.’

Billy looked down. Rags, and among the rags, bones. A human skull. ‘What happened to him?’ he whispered.

Jake shrugged. ‘Dunno. Snake bite, maybe. Knew a cove whose jaw swelled up with a bad tooth. Killed him in a week. Maybe the heebie-jeebies got too bad an he shot himself. Known that to happen too.’ He poked at the rags with his boot. It was prison issue, but so old it was held together with twine. ‘No sign of his pistol though. Mebbe a bushranger got ‘im. Some of those cove’s kill you fer a bag o’ flour.’

‘Should we bury him?’

Jake shrugged. ‘Why make work fer ourselves? Plenty more bones about the bush. Some coves reckon they can walk all the way to China. Bush gets them an’ all.’

It seemed wrong to leave the bones. But Jake was already moving the sheep on. Billy bit his lip, and followed him.

We walked. It is hard to see where to put your hoofs when you are walked in a mob, with men behind and on each side, using their whips to keep you close together. We ate when the men let us—never enough, so our ribs began to show. We drank at the waterholes they led us to.

Until one day we walked no more. Instead we were left to look for food, and drink at the narrow creek that trickled along one end of our new enclosure.

The barriers were made of logs now, not the white stuff. The logs were so high I doubted even I could jump over them, and felt solid when I leant against them.

I called out to the others of our mob to come to me…the ones who were left. It was good to have the smells of familiar companions about. We had walked with the other horses for many days, but they were still not really our mob.

I led them down to drink, and stood guard to stop the strangers from nudging them away, and then I led them back to the spot where there were tough tussocks no one had tried to eat before. They weren’t much, but they were better than empty stomachs.

Men came when the sun was high above us. At first I paid them little attention as they led one horse away, and then another. They were not my mares or their foals.

And then they came for me.

Grey Beard and Red Beard leant on the lengths of wood keeping us in. Grey Beard laughed. ‘You said you could break any horse. Let’s see what you can do.’

Red Beard chewed a blade of grass, not properly, like a horse swallowing it down, but so that it sat in his mouth. ‘I will and all,’ he said, showing his teeth. ‘He’s a beauty, ain’t he? Half Arab, I’d say. Look at that head.’

I knew they were talking about me. I tossed my head, and pawed at the ground.

‘Bet you a guinea you can’t break him.’

Red Beard showed his teeth again. ‘That’s a guinea easy earned. There ain’t no horse I can’t break in just three days. I gets half o’ the price for him when I break him, remember.’

‘I’m no man to skimp my bargain,’ said Grey Beard. He spat on his hand, and held it out to the other. ‘You have my word on it.’

That’s when Red Beard threw the rope at me.

It went around my neck. I leapt in the air, bucking, fighting to get free, but the rope—that’s what they called the white stuff, I knew by now—choked me so much I grew dizzy.

At last I realised that the more I tried to get away,
the more I choked. I quietened, my sides heaving, and paused to see what Red Beard wanted. The other horses were milling around the yard, disturbed by what was taking place.

Grey Beard pulled some of the wood away. Red Beard tugged at the rope. I pulled back, prancing and shaking my head to get rid of the restriction. It wouldn’t shake free. I had to follow him, or choke.

I heard one of my mares whinny behind me. I tried to call back, but the rope was still too tight.

That was the last I ever saw of my horses.

How can you be King when you’re alone?

Step by step, Red Beard led me to another enclosure. This was made of wood too, but smaller and stronger-looking than the one before. It was so small I couldn’t easily turn around, even if I hadn’t had the rope about my neck.

Red Beard fastened the rope to one of the bits of wood. He climbed into the enclosure. I tried to bite him, but he lunged away behind me where I couldn’t reach.

I tried to kick. I missed.

I felt another rope, this one under my tail. Another circled my body. I could hardly move, the ropes held me so close.

Red Beard ducked under the ropes, and came up to my head. He tied more ropes across my face. Again, I tried to bite. He flicked me with his whip. The pain made me lose my aim.

I tried to lift my head. I tried to yell, in anger and in fear.

I could do nothing. Nothing but stand in that wood cage held tight by ropes.

The man climbed over the railings again. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Let’s leave you there a while, shall we? Let you get used to who is boss.’ He showed his teeth again. They were yellow, like old bones.

And so I stood there. The day grew hot. I needed to drink, to eat. My body began to ache, and shake, from standing still so long.

Then he came back.

‘Down!’ he yelled. ‘Down! Down! Down!’

The whip lashed me from every side. At last I realised what he meant. I knelt, buckling my legs till I was kneeling on the ground.

Back he came, into my pen. I felt his weight upon my back. I tried to rise, to shake him off. But every time I moved he whipped me hard again.

At last I knelt there, quiet. I heard him chuckle. ‘Said that I could do it. Let’s see how you obey tomorrow, heh?’

He got off me then. He loosened my ropes—not much, but so I could move enough to stop the pain. He brought me water in a small container. It smelt of wood, not of stones and mountains and the sun. But I drank. My mouth was dry, drier than I had ever known.

And then he left me, tied up and all alone.