The Secret River (12 page)

Thornhill had heard about a place to the south where felons were sent who committed offences in the colony, a place of punishment within punishment. It was called Van Diemen’s Land, and the tales of what went on there made the blood run cold.

It seemed to Thornhill that it might be time to move on. He had not listened to the little voice that tried to warn him that night at Three Cranes Wharf. This time he would listen.

It surprised him that Sal was in agreement.
We best make sure
them boys have got their father
, she said, holding Bub up to her shoulder to quiet his grizzling.
Thank you Mr King, you done us proud,
but we best call it a day
.

Not long after, Thornhill saw the
Queen
sailing awkwardly up to the wharf with Blackwood alone in it. The story was that on the way back from Green Hills his convict servant had decided to anticipate Christmas cheer by a few weeks, and fallen overboard
with a skinful of rum. In the treacherous currents of the Hawkesbury he had sunk without a cry. Blackwood was doing no one favours, but needed a man handy with a boat and willing to venture beyond the safety of the township.

Thornhill did not hesitate. Working for Blackwood might not keep a man in French brandy, but it would save him from Van Diemen’s Land.

There was another thing. He was discovering in himself a passion to see this place, this Hawkesbury that everyone spoke about but few had seen.

~

Thornhill had gone west up Port Jackson on the
Rose Hill Packet
a few times, and in Mr King’s boat he had explored many of its coves. But when Blackwood put the tiller over hard coming out of Sydney Cove and pointed the
Queen
due east, the familiar was soon left behind. They passed the island called Pinchgut, once a prison, and Garden Island, where they could see a man chipping away at rows of something leafy. After that there was no more sign of settlement, only pale loops of beaches and sombre forest.

As they neared the Heads, where the
Alexander
had sailed in three years before, the
Queen
began to tip in a heavy swell, and further out Thornhill could see the water black with wind.
Got a
nice blow
, Blackwood called.
For your first time
. Thornhill glanced back at where Blackwood stood riding the movement of the boat, the tiller in his hand. He did not remember ever having seen Blackwood grin before.

Nothing had equipped Thornhill for what greeted him as they passed between the headlands. Blasts of wind set the
Queen
bucking. He could feel them tugging at the roots of his hair, the noise bursting in his ears. It was January, high summer, but the wind came straight off the ice far to the south.

The glittering expanse of the ocean rose into stately swells that had taken half the globe to build their bulk. They rose up steeply, streaked with white foam, and shredded along the ridges into teeth of broken white water. The wind caught at the rags of foam and sent them flying straight out over the surface.

Riding those majestic swells, Thornhill could feel the boat being picked up, pushed forward and dropped. Spray from the bow reared up slowly, burst, fell back. It seemed leisurely, even playful, until it smashed down hard enough to kill. The wave passed underneath and moved on indifferently, its back a smooth gleaming bulge as it continued towards the land.

He tasted the salt on his lips, realised he was frightened.

After half a day of this, the wind swung round to the nor’ east so they had to beat against it, long zigzags out and back through the ocean. On each tack the boat heeled and Thornhill tensed himself for the moment it would tip over. Always off to the west was that rim of land, with threads of smoke rising here and there and crescents of golden beaches, one after the other, between sombre headlands.

Blackwood pointed and said,
In there
, but Thornhill only saw another arc of beach at the base of another length of dull green forest. Blackwood made himself plainer.
Where the river comes out
, he said.
Our Hawkesbury
.

Then he swung the tiller and let out the sail a little, so the boat curved round into an opening in the line of the coast and lurched in the following sea. A blunt headland, the shape of a hammer, rose up to port. To starboard a lion of rock reared up, baring its stone breast out to the sea and the unending winds.

As the
Queen
pointed towards the gap between the island and the headland, Thornhill saw that Blackwood was tight as a fiddlestring. Those great slow swells, steady enough when they had plenty of sea room, were being funnelled into a tight neck of water that broke them into an angry chop and surge. The wind
split against the pieces of land, eddying, veering, buffeting in confusion. The
Queen
seemed absurdly tiny, tossed like a leaf.

Blackwood never took his eyes off the water, did not even seem to blink. His brown fist was closed around the tiller, his eyes half closed against the spray and wind, his cheeks wet as with tears. He leaned forward to keep his footing, his solid lighterman’s legs braced against the planks.

The
Queen
was a tough little lump, shuddering up and crashing down into the waves, but Thornhill had heard of boats pounded to pieces in such seas, the planks springing out of the stem, water pouring in. His fear had gone beyond feeling now, to a numbness where he could only watch Blackwood and hope. He gripped the gunwale and would have prayed, if he had known any God to pray to.

Then they were through. The sea was still churning and seething beneath the boat, but the wind was muted by land on all sides. They had pushed through into another geography altogether.

They call this Broken Bay
, Blackwood said.
River comes in yonder
. He pointed ahead, where Thornhill could see only confusing stretches of water and thickly forested headlands.
Best hidden river in
the world
, Blackwood said with satisfaction.
Never find your way in nor
you’d been shown like I’m showing you
.

Looking inland, where gusts of wind scraped at the water, Thornhill strained to find that secret river. In every direction, the reaches of Broken Bay seemed to end in yet another wall of rock and forest. A man could sail around for days and never find his way into the Hawkesbury.

Blackwood pointed the boat towards a solid wall of land, a heaped-up ridge that tumbled down into the water all cliffs and skinny trees that grew out of the very stones themselves, and what had seemed a dead end slyly opened up into a stretch of river between cliffs. As the boat glided along on the tide, the cliffs rose sheer on both sides, mouse-grey except where the wind had
exposed buttery rock, as if the landscape itself was a dark-skinned creature with golden flesh beneath.

The rock had been laid down flat, layer after layer piled high like flitches of timber. As it had worn away, great slabs the size of a house had fallen off and tumbled all skewiff at the foot of the cliffs. Some lay half in the water, melting away. Where the cliff met the water a tangle of snake-like roots, vines and mangroves knotted around the fallen boulders.

This was a place out of a dream, a fierce landscape of chasms and glowering cliffs and a vast unpredictable sky. Everywhere was the same but everywhere was different. Thornhill felt his eyes wide open, straining to find something they could understand.

It seemed the emptiest place in the world, too wild for any man to have made it his home. Then Blackwood said,
See yonder?
and pointed with his blunt hand at a promontory to port. Beyond the fringe of mangroves Thornhill could see tussocky grass and trees, and a heap of something pale.
Oysters, the shells
, Blackwood said, and watched the promontory fall behind them.
Suck the guts
out, chuck the shells away. Been doing it since the year dot
. He laughed.
And
fish! My word they get the fish
.

Not putting none by?
Thornhill said.
For tomorrow, like?
Blackwood gave him an amused look.
Aye
, he said.
Not putting none by
. He slapped at a mosquito on his arm.
Why would they? River ain’t going nowhere
.

Thornhill glanced around. A breeze made leaves shiver and catch the light, casting shadows that shifted and speckled differently every moment.
Where are they, then
, he asked. Blackwood took his time answering.
Every-bloody-where, mate
, he said, gesturing up ahead. Thornhill saw smoke rising thin into the air, almost lost against the rocks and trees. He turned and glanced astern and there was another grey column. It might have been smoke or the light. Blackwood did not need to glance.
They seen us all
right
, he said.
Now they’re telling the others, up the line
. Thornhill stared into the tangle of trees and rocks on the bank. He saw
something move: a man gesturing, or just a branch behaving like a man?

Blackwood gave Thornhill a short judging look.
One thing you
best know, only time we see them is when they want us to
.

The river revealed itself, teasingly, never more than a bend at a time, calm between its walls of rock and bush. As the
Queen
rounded one high spur of land, another came in from the other side, so they interlocked as neatly as gear-wheels. One reach resembled all the others: cliffs, a fringe of glossy green mangroves, green water. Even the skyline gave no clues, each bulge of high land like the others, striped with shadows from clouds passing in front of the sun.

The wind was flukey, bringing with it a dry sweet clean fragrance. The boat was drawn up by the tide as if pulled by a string, slowly, calmly, curve after curve. The twists of the landscape closed in behind them. It was not possible to know where they were going, or to see where they had been.

They came to an island, a bit of floating forest. Beyond that a long bay, as still as a mirror, bent away from the main river. The woods crowded down the ridge right to the water. A smudge of smoke hung in the air as if trapped. Blackwood jerked his chin at it.
Smasher Sullivan
, he said.
Come out on the Minstrel along of me
. The soft look had gone from his face and there was a bitter edge to the words, a tightness to his mouth. He glanced up at the sail as if to trim it, but the wind had died and the canvas hung slack from the yard.
Burns the shells for the lime
, he said.
Plus does a lot of mischief besides
.

Thornhill looked again, and now he could see how the bay was dented by a creek. Where it met the river a chip of flat ground stood out among that parched and headlong wilderness. A speck of imported green stood out there, bright. Squinting, he could make out a crooked hut, tiny in this massive place, and around it a clearing like something flayed.

As he watched, a man came to the door of the hut and
waved. He shouted across the water to Blackwood but the words were broken up into echoes by the cliffs. In spite of Blackwood’s efforts to keep her pointed up the main river, the
Queen
was drifting closer, so that Thornhill could see a few fowls pecking miserably around the man’s feet, and a shirt drying on a bush. The man got into a skiff now and splashed across towards them. He was a hundred yards away when he shouted,
Got the bugger!
His voice was clear in the still air. He bent to the oars again, digging them in deep. As he came alongside, Blackwood made no move to throw him a line, only glanced up again at the masthead where the sail still hung limp.
Learned that poxy thief
, the man was shouting.
Learned him good and proper!

Smasher Sullivan had a face that the sun had burned piebald like a botched bit of frying. The sandy hair retreated from a red dome of forehead, the eyes were small and naked-looking in a face without eyebrows. He gripped the
Queen
’s gunwale and looked up with a strained eager grin that showed gaps where the teeth were missing. He glanced at Thornhill without interest. It was Blackwood he wanted.

But Blackwood was busying himself with shaking out the sail where it was crumpling in the lack of wind. Smasher Sullivan reached for some things in the bottom of his boat and held them up.
Look what I done
, he called. Thornhill thought for a moment it was fish he had caught and was showing them, or was it a pair of gloves? Then he saw that they were hands cut off at the wrist. The skin was black against the white of the bone.

Last time that bugger thieves from me
, Smasher called, and gave a harsh high-pitched snigger. There was something horrible about the red skin of his forehead, his naked face.
Damn your eyes, Smasher
, Blackwood shouted, seizing one of the oars, his voice enormous between the cliffs. Thornhill heard the echo of it, the anger rumbling away down the mournful reach of water.
Get on that other
damned oar, Thornhill, he said. Look sharp, man
.

A dozen strokes took them out of reach of Smasher’s skiff. Blackwood shipped his oar and stood with the telescope up to his eye. Thornhill thought he must have been stung by something, the way he tore it away from his face with an angry grunt. He handed it to Thornhill who looked through it seeing only silver-green treetops at first, rounded as moss, sliding past his eye. At last he found the line where land met water and jerkily followed it around. There was the hut, a sad affair of bark and sticks, and a smouldering heap nearby. There was the corn patch, such a brilliant green it was sickening. Beside it, a tree stood silver in death, and from one of its branches a long sack hung heavy on the end of a rope.

In the first glimpse Thornhill thought it was a scarecrow put there for the birds, then that it was a beast hung up for butchering. A catspaw of wind sent the boat tinkling across the water towards the bank. He felt the eyepiece slimy with his sweat. The burden hanging there was not a scarecrow or a hog, but the body of a black man. Puffy flesh bulged around the rope under his armpits, the head lolled. The face was unrecognisable as a face, the only thing clear the yellow ear of corn stuck between the pink sponge that had been the lips.