The Untold (15 page)

S
ometimes a path seemed to appear and Jessie could not tell if it was just a depression in the earth or if other men had walked upon it and walked it down. There were spurs and ridges that could send her off on the wrong course and some paths were split in four directions or more so that choosing a path seemed to be a test in itself: at the end of each path there would be a certain fate, waiting.

When Jessie did not have the assurance of the sun or the flowers with their sun-pointed heads to navigate by, she camped and waited for night. In the mountains a cloudy day often gave way to a clear night sky and she could always find within it the Southern Cross and below it the first bright star and she knew that south lay halfway between the foot of the Cross and the bright star, or the distance of her hands outstretched.

Jack Brown had taught her that.

J
ack Brown did not ride straight to the postmaster's hut. He found himself swinging back towards Fitz's forest and soon enough he was pushing through its tangle of trees. And then when the scrub was too thick, he tied up his horse and walked through it.

He sat opposite his tree for a while and considered that facing what remained of Fitz might grow something mad in him, something beyond redemption, but then he thought redemption was just another false promise and he found himself prizing back the bark with his knife and pushing his fingers behind it.

A stench seeped out and Jack Brown stepped back and covered his face with his arm. He collected a stick from the ground and prodded the shield of bark from a distance.

The sack was in the tree, just as he had left it. Jack Brown took a deep breath, reached in and dragged it out.

It was mottled with damp and mold and there was a bright orange fungus growing up the side of it. He tested it with the stick and the stick sank right into it. He untied the rope and looked inside.

Fitz had lost all form, more swamp than human. For Jack Brown, these were hardly the remains that he had found in the cellar, that he had dragged and stuffed into the tree. This was something else, something that looked like it was dissolving in front of him. Here was some other warped version of nature, disintegrating beyond the normal flow of time.

Jack Brown tied the sack up again. He found a stronger branch and secured the sack to the branch with rope. Then he took off his boots and, holding the other end of the branch so the putrid bundle was well away from him, walked silently towards the river and there he filled the sack with stones, climbed upon a ledge and threw it in.

B
arlow's back was killing him.

Alone at the station hut, he could find nothing to take his mind off the pain of it. He had riffled through Jessie's file so many times and he was too distracted to read his periodicals or his books on science. No theorem would numb him. He needed to fix on something tangible, something precise.

He began again to prepare glass plates and roll ink across them. He pressed his fingers onto the plates one by one and stamped them across a clean page as if somehow the repetition of the task might distract him from himself. Then he held them up, compared them again to Jessie's. They were not so different. Fingerprint to fingerprint, she did not seem so far. It was proof to him that she was at last within reach, that he would find her. But not on his own. He needed Jack Brown.

He pressed his fingers onto the page and then he smeared them across it. At last he heard Jack Brown traveling up the rise, the steady rhythm of his horse, the stretching of stirrups as he dismounted. Jack Brown would have his parcel and, as sure as science, soon there would be some relief from it all, soon everything would be all right.

But it was not Jack Brown. It was just a creature moving outside.

The pain in Barlow's back increased with his waiting. He lay across the table over the smudged and inky pages, weighting his body with his hips, hanging from the edge of it. He swung his
hands above his head, swept his fingers over the floor until he felt the stretch in his spine, the traction of his body.

It brought him no relief.

He drank whiskey until he could not walk, he could only crawl. Later he crawled out of the hut and lay on the grass, waiting for Jack Brown. For a moment he felt the life in the stars charging him, sparking him at points, heat and light rushing across his chest, his knees, his groin.

He watched the stars shift against one another and his theorems collapsed together in his mind and he felt the force of himself to be insignificant, and inside or outside himself there was no equilibrium to find.

He fell asleep on the grass in front of the hut and he only woke when frost settled upon him like a glassy sheet.

J
essie followed a northbound seam to its natural end and its natural end was a boulder. It was clear, just from looking, that Houdini could not pass between the boulder and the cliff face or the drop. And they could not turn back to wind down the narrow ledge they had already walked unless she was intent on suicide or being caught. It was easier, always, to climb with a horse.

Jessie patted Houdini's nose and left him licking the moss that covered the edges of rocks. She slid herself between the boulder and the cliff face to see what path lay beyond it.

As she moved herself around it, she could see a wider path opened up, at least half the size again of the path they were on. She wedged herself between boulder and cliff and, pressing her back against the boulder and pushing with her legs, she tried to force the boulder into the drop. But there was no moving it. Not even an inch.

She launched herself down and if it hadn't been for the wider path she might have tripped down into the drop for what she saw. Was it a joke? And whose joke was it?

A skeleton rested up against the boulder.

The bones of it were sun bleached and it rested against swirls of quartz and mica. A hat was tied under its chin and it was in one piece, more or less, aided by the weeds tangled through it.

Jessie took the skeleton to be a man and a man a long time dead.

She squatted down and rearranged his hat on his head.
Are you an omen?
she said.
Are you signaling that death lies ahead?

Yet hatted and sun-bleached he did not look ominous but rather a comical thing, a friendly and mute guardian of a world beyond a world.

I
F HE COULD HAVE SPOKEN BACK
to my mother, he would have revealed that he had sat down in tiredness and in hunger. He had not wanted to serve in any man's war and he had escaped to the mountains for fear of conscription. He traveled up the rise, convinced he felt no shame in escaping. But then his shame finally expressed itself as he discovered he was unprepared for only the company of himself and he had no clue as to how to survive in the scrub and the wild of the mountain.

When he sat down against the boulder there was only enough breath in him to call out his own name, it was the only thing in his head. So that is what he did. And from where he sat, looking down into the saddle of the mountain, he heard his name called back. It came from a hundred different directions and although it satisfied him to hear—perhaps he would not be forgotten after all—it made him more disoriented than he already was.

He sat on the earth, but he could not get a sense of the earth beneath him. It was as if he were suspended and already floating down into the gaps of the mountain. He had grabbed at the tussocks of grass on either side of him and the torn-up grass with its dangling roots he took to be the finer threads of himself dislodged from the earth, life moving out of him.

He began to eat the grass as he had seen dogs do. He chewed
and chewed and ground down the dirt and the grass and the roots with his teeth until there was only an oily cud in his mouth. He was conscious that whole day, turning the paste over in his mouth, until the heat struck from him the last of his life and a figure moved down the path towards him.

It was his final death. His short, sharp death in the form of his mother. Her arms were outstretched. She sang:

My darlin', sweet darlin', don't cry.

When the night spreads her blanket,

You'll sleep with the sky.

T
he skeleton gave Jessie pause. She thought of what she could not bear to lose. With so much already lost she marveled that she could still feel it, the clinging feeling of what she could not be without.

Houdini.

She made a choice. If her own death was being flagged by the mountain, she did not want to take him with her. Houdini had life. He was escaping no one, so why should he be shackled to her fate?

She stroked his head and turned him back down the mountain. She hit his flanks.

Go, my friend
, she said.

She watched him charge down the path.

Again, she climbed around the boulder, past the sitting skeleton. If her death was approaching, she would not grasp or fight as she had been fighting for most of her life. She would go willingly towards it.

She continued up the mountain.

She focused on the countryside and all that was outside herself. She fixed her eyes on all of its unfolding detail and marked that it was changing. Ribbon gum and brown barrel, hakea and grevillea grew wild against high basalt peaks that fell away to rugged rock-strewn slopes.

Each crevice seemed to hold within it a thousand varieties of
life and as she walked along an escarpment and then a plateau she found herself within a labyrinth of rock, a watershed of country. She wondered why, if she had truly faced the certainty of her impending death and never again seeing Houdini, she still felt hope.

W
hen Jack Brown returned to the station hut, Barlow looked to him to be in a trance. There seemed to be more paper strewn through the hut, though it appeared Barlow had not moved from the table since Jack Brown left.

Do you have it?
said Barlow.

Jack Brown threw him his mail: a new issue of
Mind Power Plus
and a parcel wrapped in brown paper.

Don't throw it!
said Barlow.

Jack Brown scratched his back against the edge of the doorframe.
Sergeant, it's already been shaken up all the way from Sydney.

Barlow headed for the washroom with the packages tucked under his arm and Jack Brown heard him close the door behind him.

A man's business is his own
, thought Jack Brown and he took his gun and moved outside again. The orange sky marked the end of the day and the bone-gray grass turned golden. He saw rabbits spring up between tussocks of grass. He perched his chin on the neck of the gun. Then, moving his eyes but not his arm, he fired a single shot.

His ears were still ringing as he moved down the slope, searching the grass until he found the rabbit. Its eyes were wide open. He twisted its neck to be sure it was dead and then he knelt down and skinned it. When the fur was clear of its carcass, Jack Brown opened it up and pulled out its intestines, its liver and the small
green gland inside it. He dug a hole in the ground and buried the gland, as he knew it was poison. He tried to recall if he had removed it the last time he ate rabbit, but he could not remember. The task of catching a rabbit and skinning it was no longer a conscious thing. He had eaten so many of them.

Back in the hut he found a rusted pot in the kitchen and he scrubbed it with a metal brush and greased it with fat. He cut the rabbit into chunks and found an onion in the garden and a few potatoes and he sliced them up and set it all in the pot with water and salt. Breaking up sticks and twigs to fit in the belly of the stove, he made a dry bundle, lit it and blew till until the chimney sucked up the flame. Fire crackled up against the iron, a sound that always made him feel good.

He had noticed nettles near the veranda and he knew they were good eating. He picked the spiky green leaves from their stems, then back in the kitchen, tore them up and added them to the pot. He stirred them in with the rabbit and watched their spikes folding down and softening and the water turn dark green as the stew started boiling up.

He knocked on the door of the washroom and said,
Sergeant, your dinner will soon be on the table.

Jack Brown sat on the veranda and smoked cigarettes to quell his hunger. He smoked three, one after the other, but his hunger grew inside him anyway. While he was waiting he gave the horses new feed and cleaned out their yard. Then, when he was done, he went inside and tasted the stew. The meat was tender enough. He fried up the liver he had saved and when it was brown and bubbling at the edges he picked it from the pan with his fingers and ate it.

Barlow had not yet emerged from the washroom. Jack Brown knocked on the door and there was no answer. He yelled out,
You all right, man?
and Barlow shouted back,
Give me a call when my dinner is on the table
.

I'm not your black slave
, yelled back Jack Brown.

What?
said Barlow.

Your dinner is on the table.

Jack Brown cleared the long table that Barlow had layered with paper. He served the stew. Barlow appeared at the door looking as if he had not washed at all. He loitered for a while and then sat down.

Jack Brown ate hungrily and he thought the stew was good and thick with flavor. When he looked up, Barlow was staring at his fork and then his head fell forward and he jolted back up.

What's wrong with you, Sergeant?

I'm good, Jack Brown, I'm good.

Barlow started eating but mostly he moved things around on his plate.

Jack Brown went to the kitchen and filled his plate again. And he had finished off his second plate when Barlow declared that he was full enough and stood up, but instead of pushing his chair back he pushed the table forward and it hit Jack Brown squarely in the gut. Jack Brown thought his dinner would come up.

Barlow apologized over and over and offered Jack Brown a whiskey, which he declined.

Jack Brown had taken to smoking—it quelled a churning feeling—and he went outside and lit another cigarette. The night was still. Soon Barlow sat beside him with two heavy glasses and filled them right up and handed one of them to Jack Brown.

Sorry about that, Jack Brown—I lost my bearings.

Barlow sat on the edge of the veranda. He leaned against a post and kicked his boots out into the grass. There was a long silence between the men and it was so quiet that Jack Brown could hear the sound of Barlow swallowing.

Then Barlow said,
So what kind of man are you, Jack Brown?

Jack Brown would have preferred the silence than to be asked that kind of question.

Do you mean am I queer? That kind of thing?

Barlow laughed.
I mean, a man can call himself many things.

Like what?
said Jack Brown.

Let's think about it. There's man about town, man of his time
, said Barlow. His voice was drawn out.

What are you, Sergeant?

I don't know. I was hoping you might tell me.
Barlow threw back his whiskey.

Jack Brown inhaled deeply and pointed to the constellations that were forming, but his mind was blank and he could not think of the names of any of them.

Do you think you can read people on sight?
said Barlow. He poured himself another whiskey.

Do you mean if you can trust the man or not?
said Jack Brown.

I've been reading about it in
Mind Power Plus
. There's four types, it says. There's the Alimentative, the Muscular, the Osseous, the Cerebral.

Jack Brown blew out a long stream of smoke.
I wouldn't be able to say if I was any of those, Sergeant
, he said.

Barlow brought his legs up to his chest and balanced his glass
on his knee. He put his face behind it and examined Jack Brown through the amber liquid.
I'd say you were the Muscular type, Jack Brown. You know, all the great warriors were Muscular types.

I'm no warrior, Sergeant
, said Jack Brown.

The Muscular type, he's one for the open air, in constant motion, in accord with the laws of nature. That's gotta be you, Jack Brown.
Barlow rested his head against the post and closed his eyes.

Jack Brown examined Barlow. There was a hopelessness about him, his limp hair flopping all over his face.

You need to sleep, Sergeant
, said Jack Brown
. You look like a bit of a wreck.

Barlow sat up.
You ever shoot up, Jack Brown?

Rabbits. Roos. Cows
, replied Jack Brown.
I shot at men in the war.

Hats off to you, Jack Brown. But what I'm talking about is drugs. Have you shot any drugs into your veins?

No, Sergeant
, said Jack Brown
. I've never had cause for that.

Barlow staggered into the hut and returned with a small black leather case. He sat next to Jack Brown and made a performance of flicking it open by its silver tabs and unveiling its contents: a glass medicine bottle and parts of a syringe lodged between red velvet cushioning.

Heroin
, said Barlow, holding up the small bottle.

What does it do for you?
asked Jack Brown.

It's all in the name. It makes you feel like a hero.

A heroine is a woman.

Why don't you try it, Jack Brown? Decide for yourself.

Jack Brown crossed his legs and rolled another cigarette.

I'll go inside and fix it
, said Barlow. He sprang up, seemingly
suddenly energized, more energized than Jack Brown had ever seen him. He pulled a rubber cord from his pocket.
Tie this up below your elbow and pump your hand till you see your veins sticking out.

Jack Brown rolled up his sleeves. The air was still and warm against his skin. The whiskey was taking effect, like a glow from his insides. He wondered what it would be like to feel like a hero or a heroine, on a calm night or any night, and then what did a man do when he felt himself to be one? Jack Brown wrapped the tourniquet around his arm and made a fist with his hand, as Barlow had instructed him to do. It felt good to do that and to see the dark, strong veins appearing under the surface of his skin.

When Barlow reappeared with two candles and a syringe between his teeth, Jack Brown's forearm was well lined with veins. Barlow sat down, placed the candles on either side of him and said,
Jack Brown, show me your muscles
. Jack Brown held out his arm and Barlow angled the needle into it. Barlow drew up the plunger of the syringe slightly. Jack Brown saw his own blood twisting inside it. He closed his eyes then, as Barlow pressed the plunger down and undid the tourniquet.

The tourniquet unfurled like a snake in Jack Brown's lap and he did not know what hit him. Heat teemed along his arm and moved up his neck and across his chest and down again. He leaned down, put his head between his knees, though the earth seemed to come straight to him.

The night wrapped around the hill and the sky pulsed with stars and planets. Jack Brown opened his eyes and felt his arms pinned down. He drew on all his strength to lift them. It was as if he was lifting weights. He managed to raise them up over his face so he could count ten fingers, which reassured him. He pulled
himself back onto the veranda and swung himself around so his head hung off the end of it. He tried to determine which way was up and which way was down and then he searched for south by holding up his hands to the sky and by the angle of the stars, he knew where to find it.

As true as a compass.

And then he did not doubt where he was or why he was there. There were a thousand stars that he could not name and they were just a thousand versions of himself that he did not know and he felt no resistance, just degrees of goodness and badness all seeking each other, all wanting, somehow, to come together.

It did not matter then what he had done or not done. Around him the air was liquid and warm and he could move through it any way he chose. He sat up and he saw everything around him—the hut, the grass, the trees, the dark. They all drew in breath when he drew in breath and when he held his breath so did they all.

There was no distance then and no time. There were selves within selves enfolding each other. He had as much strength as the tree and as much force as the mountain. He was all the elements. He was the weather. It belonged to him.

He heard music then, and he did not know where it came from. He followed the sound and soon he found Barlow standing on the side of the hill playing a violin. The strands of his bow were snapping and flying around him.

The music moved into Jack Brown, right into the center of him, and he was possessed to drop to the ground on all fours. He felt in himself the spirit of the rabbit he had killed for their dinner and he leapt between tussocks of grass and was drawn on and on around the hill by the amber pools of light that appeared in front of
him. He stood up then and felt himself to be a man complete, and around him was all of nature and he was nature's offspring.

The music stopped and the silence was sudden and serious. He sat on the ground. His legs looked to him like fallen trunks and he felt the curve of the earth beneath him. He craned his neck to the part of the sky directly above him and a tear rolled down his cheek. He did not feel it coming but he caught it on the end of his finger and raised it to the sky like some offering. In it he could see prisms of light and there were prisms opening all around him.

He stood up and looked for Barlow. He could see him on the top of the hill and began to walk towards him. He held up his arms to wave to him and Barlow began to yell. The sound coming from him was warped, like he was speaking underwater. Jack Brown walked closer. And then he heard him.

Where are the fucking women?
he
yelled.
Jack Brown, where are the fucking women?

Jack Brown knew where the women were, he knew where to find them, and soon they were riding their horses unsaddled towards them. When they reached the end of Old Road, Jack Brown could not even remember calling the horses or mounting them.

You are a fucking hero, Jack Brown
, shrieked Barlow as he galloped past him.

A wake of air folded around Jack Brown and he pushed his own horse into an echoing gallop. He heard it then, the earth disturbed and compacting as they rode, all of untold time beneath them.