The Night They Stormed Eureka (2 page)

Mrs Puddleham beamed as though Sam had given her first prize on a game show. ‘I knew it! Well then, let’s get you fed. I got some nice treacle dumplings here — you wait till you taste my dumplings. Light as the clouds and sweet as Christmas morning. Now let’s set ourselves down and —’ Mrs Puddleham stopped, as another noise echoed through the trees.

Hoofbeats.

Mrs Puddleham grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow. ‘Run,’ she yelled to Sam and her husband.

But the horse was upon them, its rider pulling at thereins so the big animal reared and stamped its hooves. It was brown with one white sock, so close Sam could smell its grassy sweat. She could smell the rider, too, as he stared down at them. He smelled of old booze, like Mum when she’d forgotten to shower for days.

He was young, she thought, or at least his eyes looked young — blue eyes above a spotted blue-and-white handkerchief tied over his mouth just like in the cowboy movies. He wore a bright shirt and a red sash about his waist. But the pistol in his hand looked different from the ones in any film she’d seen; the barrel was longer and thinner. She had seen something like it, she thought, in one of Mrs Quant’s books.

A history book.

‘Your money or your life!’

It was such a corny line she’d have giggled, if she hadn’t felt like she’d been dragged through the spin cycle of a washing machine.

The big horse stamped and skittered sideways. Mrs Puddleham let go of the wheelbarrow and put a hand to her heart. She seemed to shrink suddenly. ‘Oh my,’ she whispered. ‘Oh deary, deary me.’

Sam stared at the youth and the horse. Guns and fear and smelly people. This isn’t the past I wanted to go to, she thought. This is someone else’s story, not mine. The world swam again, like she was seeing it through the water in a swimming pool. Then it cleared again, leaving her stronger, as though courage seeped up from the leaves and soil through her sneakers.

‘What d’ye want with a poor ole couple like us?’ whimpered Mrs Puddleham next to her, in a voice quite unlike her previous tones. ‘Oh, my heart. Me poor ole heart.’

Sam glanced at her. Mrs Puddleham’s whimper didn’t quite ring true.

‘You knows what I want. Come on. I ain’t got all day.’ The rider aimed the pistol at the couple. The horse jerked restlessly, then stopped still again.

‘You dastard, sir.’ Mr Puddleham pulled himself up to his full height, which still left him centimetres shorter than Sam. ‘How dare you scare a lady like this!’

‘Please,’ Mrs Puddleham’s voice quavered. ‘Don’t hurt us. Mister. Please. We’re just a poor ole couple who …’

The rider snickered under his handkerchief. ‘Poor old couple my ar—’

‘Leave them alone!’ Sam hadn’t even known she was going to yell till her mouth opened. What was she doing? She’d just shouted at a man with a gun.

And suddenly she knew why. Because wherever she was, whenever she’d come to, she was no longer Sam-who-had-to-be-quiet, Sam-who-no-one-should-notice. Here she was … I’m whoever I want to be, she realised.

The world cleared again, like someone had washed a window. This
was
her story. A new story. She could do anything in it. Anything at all.

And someone here had to do something. Fast.

She took a deep breath, and tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Are you a bushranger?’

It sounded so dumb she blushed. But it was the first thing that came into her head.

The rider’s eyes wrinkled as he grinned under his mask. ‘Bushranger? You win the apple, you do!’ He waved the hand that didn’t hold the pistol. ‘This here’s the bush, ain’t it? An’ here’s me horse. What do you think I am? Flaming Lord Mayor o’ Melbourne?’

Fear made a lump in her throat. But I can’t let it show, she thought. He likes me because I don’t seem scared.

The bushranger turned back to the Puddlehams. ‘An’ if you two don’t hand over yer gold I’ll splatter yer insides from here to Melbourne.’

‘Gold? We ain’t got gold …’ stammered Mrs Puddleham, wringing her hands. They were large and red, with short cracked nails.

‘Look at them!’ Sam gestured at the tiny man and the big, gasping woman, standing close together as though to shield each other. ‘They don’t have any gold!’

‘That’s what they all say.’

‘If they had gold, they’d be riding a horse like you. Or they’d be in a … a carriage or something. All they’ve got is a wheelbarrow. You could steal their wheelbarrow,’ she added. ‘That’d be really useful on your horse.’

She sensed rather than saw the grin widen again under the handkerchief. It gave her confidence. The horse lowered its nose and snorted at her.

‘Feisty brat, ain’t ye?’ The bushranger sounded a bit like Nick now he wasn’t yelling. She almost wanted to ask him if he had a twin sister called Liz. But Nick’s voice never hadthis rasp of bitterness. The bushranger jerked his pistol. ‘Strip,’ he told the couple.

Mrs Puddleham put her hand to her bosom again. It was so big you could rest a glass of water on it, thought Sam. ‘I never could —’

‘There’s plenty as keeps their gold down their petticoats or in their stockings. Come on now! Off with your clothes! You too, brat,’ he added to Sam. ‘Hurry up, old lady.’ He turned back to the woman. ‘Get yer garters off. I ain’t got all day.’

Mrs Puddleham shook her head so hard her chins wobbled, a prickly flush rising from her neck and over her already red cheeks. Mr Puddleham stepped forwards, an indignant sparrow now.

‘No gentleman would speak so to a lady! What would Her Majesty say if she could hear you, eh?’

The bushranger laughed. ‘I’d give a right good one to have the queen in front of me, I would an’ all. An’ all her jewels. It’d be the making of me. Now, off with that skirt, lady.
An
‘ yer stockings.’ He gestured again with his pistol.

Sam thrust herself in front of the shrinking woman. ‘If you want to shoot her then you’ll have to shoot me first.’

A sudden memory from something Mrs Quant had said struck her. If this
was
the olden days and if this man
was
a bushranger …

‘You can only fire that pistol once, can’t you? So you can only shoot one of us. And if you shoot me then this man —’ she gestured to little Mr Puddleham ‘— can pullyou off your horse and call the police. And if I duck and you miss me,’ she added, ‘then we’ll all drag you off your horse and sit on you till the police come.’

The gasp behind her made her wonder if either of the Puddlehams could help carry out her threat. She didn’t know whether she could do it either. But maybe the bluff would work.

Mrs Puddleham gave a moan and slumped on her husband’s shoulders, her big arms around his skinny neck. The small man staggered, but kept his feet.

The bushranger chuckled again. ‘I ain’t worried by the police. These two might escape, I grant you. But you’d be dead.’

Sam kept her eye on the pistol. It wavered when he laughed.

She chose the most outrageous claim she could think of.

‘Bet I could beat you in a fight.’

‘What?’ The chuckle grew to a roar of laughter. The pistol wavered again.

Sam leaped. Her fingers grasped the pistol for a second, then slipped away as the man jerked his hand up.

The horse reared.

‘Whoa, Bessie!’ The rider gripped the saddle with his legs. A shot rang out as he jerked the trigger, trying to keep his balance.

‘Run!’ shrieked Sam.

Mrs Puddleham suddenly stood straight again, miraculously no longer cowering. She hitched up her skirts, showing thick legs in black stockings and men’sboots a size too large for her, and galloped into the trees. The little man sprinted after her.

The bushranger had his horse back under control now. He glared down at Sam. ‘Look what you’ve just cost me. An’ by the look o’ your rags you ain’t got tuppence to rub together.’

Sam glanced down at her jeans. They were the old ones she wore after school. And Gavin must have torn her shirt last night. ‘They left the wheelbarrow. You can steal that. Every horse needs a wheelbarrow.’

The bushranger made a snuffling sound under his handkerchief. He was trying not to laugh. He sounded even more like Nick now. She felt the terror slowly wash away.

‘Can’t you think of something better to do? Like working for a living?’

The laughter stopped. The blue eyes grew hard above the handkerchief. ‘And what do you know about it, brat? You ever been chained to the wheel? Let’s see your back, eh? You got any scars? You ever been lashed till yer ribs show white? They stole seven years of my life and gave me hell. So maybe I’ll give the world a little hell in return.’

Sam clenched her fists. She wouldn’t let him scare her now. ‘I know enough, even if I don’t have scars on my back. And those two didn’t look like they’ve ever taken anything from anyone. Or hurt anyone, either.’

The bushranger hesitated.

Sam reached up and stroked the horse’s nose. It whickered at her and mumbled at her fingers with his thickvelvety lips. Mum had let her have riding lessons, years ago, before …

No, she wouldn’t think of Mum. This was a new story, a story where she was triumphant.

‘I know what it’s like,’ she said more quietly. ‘You want to hurt back. But you need to pick your target. Besides,’ she added practically, ‘if you only hold up rich-looking people you’ll get more money with less chance of being caught.’

‘I should give you a walloping, that’s what I should do. A bit of spit and wind standing there arguing with a bushranger.’

The rider raised his pistol again. But this time it was a salute, not a threat. ‘Well done, lad,’ he said quietly. ‘I hope they’s proper grateful.’

He jigged the horse with his knees. The horse snorted again, then cantered away along the track.

Lad?

Sam glanced down at her jeans and sneakers, then put her hand up to her short hair.

‘I’m a girl, you idiot!’ she yelled.

But the bushranger had gone.

‘He didn’t hurt you none?’

‘Girl!’

The Puddlehams spoke at the same time. They must have hidden behind a tree, thought Sam. The trees around here were bigger than any she’d known, but it would need to be massive to hide Mrs Puddleham.

‘O’ course she’s a girl, Mr Puddleham!’ Mrs Puddleham marched across to Sam. There was no sign of her terror now. ‘She ain’t the first girl pretending to be a boy on the goldfields, neither.’

‘Goldfields?’ Suddenly Sam’s hands were shaking. But it made sense. The bushranger, the couple’s clothes. And Puddleham, the name on the gravestone. But this isn’t what the Puddlehams should be like, she thought desperately. The world swayed for a moment, the cold breeze from nowhere nibbling once again.

The woman hugged her. Her arms felt strong as well as fat, and smelled of old sweat and sour clothes. Sam accepted it awkwardly. She never knew what to do when people hugged her. Mum wasn’t good with hugs.

But the hug was reassuring, nonetheless. The world steadied. The breeze vanished, leaving the hot scent of gum leaves as well as sweat. She felt like she had been tugged by a hundred ropes that had suddenly been cut away. But she’d won! For the first time in her life she’d fought back properly, and she’d won.

The fat arms released her. The big woman stood back, staring at her with an expression Sam couldn’t read: a curiously searching gaze, part hope, part something else.

‘We owe you our thanks, miss,’ Mr Puddleham doffed his top hat to her. Sam had never seen anyone doff a hat before, but this one was definitely being doffed.

‘It wasn’t anything,’ said Sam, not sure how to respond.

‘It were a good deal more’n that,’ Mrs Puddleham lifted her skirt. For someone who’d been so modest before, thought Sam, she didn’t mind showing her legs now. They bulged like legs of lamb, clad in what looked like black knitted stockings held up by ruffled green garters, with wobbly white flesh threaded with blue veins above the knees.

Mrs Puddleham untied a small white drawstring bag from one of the garters. She grinned, showing the gaps in her teeth again. Had her terror been real, thought Sam suddenly, or just a show for the bushranger? ‘The joke’s on him, deary. Look at this! There’s two pounds’ worth of gold dust here!’

‘Mrs Puddleham!’ the little man hissed. He glanced around. ‘You don’t know who’s listening. Or who this girl is with.’

‘It’s obvious, Mr Puddleham,’ Mrs Puddleham spoke matter-of-factly, but there was an undercurrent of excitement too. ‘She’s by herself, ain’t you, deary? Run off disguised as a boy … and we ain’t asking why you’ve run off neither,’ she added quickly. ‘No girl runs away unless her family deserves it, that’s what I say, or ‘cause the cove she’s apprenticed to ill-treats her. An’ no one knows that better’n I,’ she said more quietly. ‘No questions, deary. No, you’ll never get no unwelcome questions from me.’

Sam stared at her. She was a hundred years away from her own time, at least. Yet here was this woman, this strange fat woman so much older than she was, who understood. The tears prickled again.

‘Well, let’s have a bite to eat. It’s my belief,’ added Mrs Puddleham, stuffing the gold back into her stocking and letting her skirts fall again, ‘that everything’s better with a good lining to your stomach. An’ then we can introduce ourselves proper. An', Mr Puddleham, get that look off your face. You look like a sheep who thinks it’ll be shorn.’ She stared at Sam again, with that strange depth of yearning. ‘This is a good girl, I’ll warrant, may the devil turn my teacakes flat forever if I tell a lie.’

Mrs Puddleham untied what looked like a floury sack dangling by her side, tied with rope to her waist. ‘Now let’s get off the track afore we has our bite to eat, in case that young varmint or one like him comes by again.’

They sat among the shifting leaf dapples, and Mrs Puddleham opened her sack. It held lumps of what looked like dough, all stuck together and a bit hairy from the hessian. Mrs Puddleham pulled one off the others and held it out to Sam.

‘Here you are, deary. You get your mouth round one o’ these.’

‘What is it?’ asked Sam cautiously. The thing looked like a soggy golf ball.

‘One o’ my treacle dumplings. You won’t find a lighter dumpling on the goldfields.’