The Bark Cutters (11 page)

‘And of course then there's the matter of the bribe you took.'

‘The bribe?' The youth stuttered.

‘Come, now. I knew you were a man of intelligence when I first walked in. No-one does business without benefit, but of course you know this, so …' Hamish held out his hand and found it gripped rather nervously. ‘And the deeds?'

‘The deeds? Yes, of course the deeds.' The youth noted Hamish as the new owner for all three blocks for the price of two and scrawled his own signature in scratchy copperplate beneath.

‘And a receipt.'

‘A receipt,' the youth repeated, automatically filling in the required paperwork.

‘Very good, boy,' Hamish muttered as he strode from the building, adjusting his hat against the angle of the noon sun. If he walked quickly he would have his business done before the heat of the day arrived, leaving him the afternoon at his leisure. He fingered the coin in his pocket and thought of Rose.

‘Flowers last Friday, and now this.' Rose smiled demurely, opening the small box that held a thick length of fine green velvet ribbon. ‘I accept this gift as part of your courtship, sir.' Rose smiled beatifically.

Hamish was not sure when he'd decided to take Rose Sutton as his wife. He certainly did not love her. At least not in the way he knew from the past. But her youth and innocence were attractive and he cared for her. Besides, first-hand experience had taught him that love was an overrated commodity. There were other reasons to form unions; respectability, for one. The Suttons were by no means impoverished. Lorna's table was dressed with care and they lived and dressed well, although conservatively. There being no Mr Sutton also gave Hamish a modicum of power for there was no-one to question his past or make demands on his future. As gentlewomen Rose and her mother were content to accept the rumours circulating about him and to this end Hamish found himself pictured in a most positive light.

‘I am away on business this evening and shall return tomorrow,' Hamish offered. He had sold the three small blocks within the hour to speculators, doubling his money, and went on to purchase a fine watch and chain for himself. The ribbon was something he believed his Mary would have liked. ‘So you will excuse me?'

‘Of course.' Rose smiled, a rather becoming blush spreading across her fair skin.

He watched the slight figure as it retreated back to the sanctity of her mother's house, momentarily intrigued by the perfect sway of her gown.

‘Very much you want a wife, Mister Hamish?' Lee grinned cheekily, appearing from the street, a pouch of tobacco in his hand.

‘In truth, I had not been seeking one,' Hamish admitted as he strolled from the front of the house around to the side to where Lorna's small but sufficient vegetable garden had recently been introduced to some of Lee's more exotic herbs. ‘But it appears Miss Rose Sutton is prepared to accept the task.'

‘You get in trouble quick,' Lee grinned again, patting his stomach with enthusiasm before removing a chunk of tobacco from the pouch he carried and stuffing it into his mouth.

‘Perhaps,' said Hamish as he clapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘We shall see.' With a wife, perhaps a child eventually and Lorna to mind both, he planned to continue the establishment of his business, whilst presenting himself to society in a favourable light. Unplanned though the union was, respectability was fast becoming a commodity Hamish knew he needed in the rough days ahead.

Dave watched Hamish as he skinned the two hind legs of the kangaroo, using his knife to run around each knee-joint before twisting and snapping the bone. Deftly he skewered the meaty thighs with a long stick and rested them above the flame of the fire. Within seconds Lee bustled him aside to sit the billycan next to the meat. Dave slurped his tea loudly. He rather liked the old Chinaman. He had a knack of keeping things steady. Hell, even Tootles liked him. He was their good luck charm, he reckoned. No wonder everything was going to plan. They had walked the merino sheep some twenty miles west of Sir Malcolm's property before driving them in a northerly direction and seen not a soul in the last week. A few more days and they would be forty miles north of The Hill and into relative safety.

Dave rubbed his back roughly against the tree trunk behind him, aware his movements were being followed. Opposite him, hunched low on the edge of the light from Lee's fire, the two weedy recruits collected some days prior, sons of convicts both,
stared at him. Dave lifted his nose in imitation of a pig's snout and proceeded to stare them both down.

The tall boy, the talker, drooled at the mention of food and the other had to piss every five minutes. Jasperson didn't want to know about it. Said it didn't matter. Dave guessed he was right. They could ride and control a wing apiece of the sheep and mostly were too scared to speak, instead taking to picking their noses and farting the rest of the time. Dave reckoned Jasperson used the boys like the whores in Ridge Gully, except the kids didn't cost him a cent. Disgusting was what Dave thought of it. Still, if it kept Jasperson happy and off his back, he could live with it. Besides, the boys could work and he reckoned that was all that mattered.

With the meat finally cooked, Lee divided the food up equally, dumping a wedge of warm damper on each man's plate. The Chinaman had arrived only that morning, having ensured Tootles Reynolds had played his part to completion. The men pulled apart the juicy flesh with their teeth, using the doughy bread to slop up any juices. They ate ravenously, each keeping an eye on Lee, who safeguarded the remains until all were finished, before offering scant seconds. There would only be bones tonight, Dave concluded, rubbing his filled stomach. Lee tossed a bone apiece to the two lads, who fell upon them like starving dogs.

In the quiet of early evening, as Lee made more tea and filled their leather water pouches from the small creek only a few feet from their camp, Hamish studied his resting team. Dave, already lying flat on his back, snored quietly, while Jasperson threw a small log onto the fire and began whittling a stick with a knife he kept hidden in his boot. The blade winked in the firelight, the sharp pointy end making quick work of the wood. When he had finished, he picked a few strings of meat from his teeth. The two lads, having withdrawn slightly further away from the ring of light, slept close together, as if needing protection. Hamish knew that
once all were asleep Jasperson would take one of the boys off into the scrub. He leant forward to warm his palms against the remaining heat of the dying coals. It was a mild evening and Jasperson's appetites were none of his concern. The man was loyal and, like Dave, had ability – that was all that mattered. His plan had been accomplished and very soon he would return to Ridge Gully, a wealthy man with a wife to warm his bed.

Hamish knew he had timed everything perfectly. Tootles Reynolds would now be the owner of Ridge Gully Stock and Station. The bank manager, having approached Matthew Reynolds with a buyer, would have been surprised to find Reynolds not only interested, but agreeable to the first offer. For some hours earlier Reynolds would have discovered his sheep stolen and his own plan gone awry. This mishap would have then been complicated by Reynolds learning that Sir Malcolm Wiley had been sent word that his trusted agent was indeed his robber. Hamish decided Reynolds would have wasted no time in packing his belongings and disappearing under cover of night. Happily, Tootles would now find himself a well respected business man.

The Ridge Gully Commerce Society would welcome Tootles with open arms and the bank manager would place the gold and jade brooch back in the safe at Ridge Gully Bank. Good for another major transaction at some point in the future. Perhaps the General Store, Hamish considered, with Lorna Sutton at its helm. Yes, the woman would be astute enough for that.

Hamish stretched out flat on his blanket. The last of the business, Sir Malcolm's sheep, were on their way back to Sir Malcolm, at least five thousand of them. The remaining two thousand, their current charges, had already been sold to an agent from Queensland. And by the week's end, having fulfilled the contract, Hamish expected to be ensconced in Reynolds' brick residence. Lee was to return to Ridge Gully tomorrow to ensure Tootles carried out this next transaction. Hamish closed his eyes.
Respectability was his, although he would decline the personal invitation expected from Sir Malcolm on his return. Being feted by an Englishman would only sour his achievements and reveal that he was not the wealthy Scottish neighbour the inhabitants of Ridge Gully had so helpfully announced. He yawned. Tomorrow he would give the order for Jasperson to cut the throats of the two lads they had hired not two weeks back. It couldn't be helped. They were uneducated youths, the sons of convicts and not to be trusted.

‘She Reynolds' whore,' Lee uttered quietly, a bulbous mass of chewing tobacco lodged firmly in his left cheek.

Hamish sat upright. ‘Whore? What are you talking about, Lee?' He'd been dozing by the remains of the fire, awaking periodically to the rustling sounds of creatures beyond the rim of their camp site.

‘Lorna is a whore,' Lee repeated, dragging a night log onto the glowing embers.

‘How do you know this?' Hamish asked, glancing around at the sleeping bodies. Dave was asleep while Jasperson and one of the youths were missing.

‘I followed her.'

Distracted, Hamish waved his friend away. Lorna, short, pudgy, unattractive, and a whore. He scanned the evenings spent in her company, sifting through their conversations with minute precision, but there was nothing there; nothing that would be useful to Reynolds anyway. ‘Damn her,' Hamish said aloud. Somehow the woman had managed to breed a fine daughter and play him the fool. ‘Damn!' He swept his fingers through his hair with irritation, and then just as quickly relaxed. The daughter was an innocent and once Ridge Gully lay like an empty well behind
him, not one person would know what stock his wife had come from. Lorna would do his bidding and she would ensure Rose stayed in line as well. Hamish lay back down, cocooning himself between soil and blanket. There was time enough to contemplate that every negative could indeed prove useful when it came to creating an empire.

Rose Gordon sponged her body carefully, the warm water soothing the swell of her stomach. In the lamplight the drops of water joined at her breasts and, gathering momentum, ran down in rivulets to the cotton of her petticoat. The moisture accumulated, a large dampness forming. Irritably wiping her body dry, she got into bed, pulling the coverlets up high to her chin. Nine months of marriage, most of which she had been with child. Were it not for some pressing business on the day of their wedding that kept him away for nearly two weeks, the weight of his child would already have left her.

Oh God, how had she, schooled as she was, managed to deceive herself into believing marriage to this invisible Scot was what she wanted? There had been hopes, nothing grand, no, a modest wedding, with perhaps a carriage, a white dress, with just a little lace. Perhaps Sir Malcolm would pay for it, or send a gift, for it had often been said at the big house that she had been his favourite. However, nothing came. Much later her new husband's
ignorant refusal of an invitation to the estate was finally revealed to her. It would appear that he had been of some assistance to Sir Malcolm in a matter of stock theft, yet Hamish had refused a titled man, someone their better.

So there was no gift. And the brooch from which she could gain a loan for the wedding she wanted had never reappeared after it went missing from her small box of keepsakes. Inside the box there only remained a scrap of copied poetry, a dried flower and length of green velvet ribbon. But there was no brooch. She and Hamish married in a quiet ceremony in their street clothes. And now all these months later, growing heavier with child, with no-one but her mother and a serving girl for company, she wandered the badly furnished brick residence of Matthew Reynolds. Four times Hamish came back to her bearing gifts. First a slim gold finger ring inlaid with turquoise, then a pair of gold earrings, a length of silk and a striking ivory-handled fan. Each gift was repaid by her in their bedroom. Within days he was gone, his presence only noticeable by the smell of cigar smoke and the return to the dull food the serving girl prepared without the watchful eye of Lee. And, of course, there was the emptiness. For people only visited when Hamish was about, and then they were all male.

The brick residence was her domain, the two houses either side hers also, a belated wedding gift. Immediately she had rented them both, depositing the returns into the bank for her child's schooling. The Stock and Station Agency, now owned by Reynolds' brother, appeared also to be owned by her husband, as did the General Store and the lumberyard. In the street there was talk of stock theft, of Sir Malcolm retiring to Sydney, of the land her husband accumulated, of his entry into a war zone with squatter and selector fighting for land.

Rose rolled onto her side. NSW parliament had passed two acts that had changed her life in Ridge Gully forever. A selector
was now able to purchase 40 to 320 acres of crown land at twenty shillings per acre. All that was required was a deposit of twenty-five per cent of the purchase price, the balance to be paid to the Colonial Treasurer over three years. So while the squatters argued over the destruction of their fledging colony and the ‘Unlock the land' cries continued, Todd Reynolds charged interest rates of eighty per cent to selectors, who accepted the terms when the banks turned them down. When the selectors could not meet their commitments, Ridge Gully Stock and Station foreclosed and Hamish Gordon became wealthier as his land holdings increased.

‘Rose?'

Hamish's voice startled her. She hunkered down further beneath the bedclothes.

‘Rose, are you awake?'

A streak of light shone through the open door. ‘Your mother says you've not left your room all day.'

Rose felt the weight of his body as he sat on the bed next to her.

‘Are you ill?' Hamish rested his hand on her brow. He turned up the oil lamp on the pine bedside table until a weak light spluttered across the white linen and the huddle beneath.

‘I am heavy with child.'

‘A ready excuse you have availed yourself of these past months.' Hamish's fingers retreated to his pocket, curling around the gold brooch. Having decided to return her possession now it was no longer required, his mind flicked over the story he'd concocted. Stumbling upon it at a money lender's establishment seemed the best of limited alternatives. ‘I hope after the birth you will be more rested.'

‘Surely you have more important things to attend to.'

Hamish frowned at her harsh tone. ‘I thought you would be happy here. I know the wedding was not as you'd hoped for. Your
mother told me as much. However you have to understand, Rose, that I'm building a future not only for us but for our children as well.'

Rose sat upright in her bed. ‘You lied to me. You were never any Scottish gentleman. Gentlemen with honour don't behave the way you have. Why, I can't hold my head up in the street anymore.'

Hamish thought of mentioning Lorna's prostitution. It seemed her mother was equally adept at obscuring reality. However, he doubted Rose was even aware of Lorna's extracurricular activities. ‘You took me on face value, as you took Sir Malcolm Wiley.'

‘What's that meant to mean?'

‘That you believed him to be a decent, honest man.' Hamish couldn't help but chuckle. This new country was full of illegal dealings and hypocrisy at all levels of society.

‘He is,' Rose replied with an adamant nod of her head.

‘I had no idea you were so naive.'

‘I don't love you.' There, she had said it. The relief was palpable.

‘We married because we cared for each other.'

‘I was wrong.'

‘People marry for different reasons, Rose,' Hamish said as tenderly as he could. ‘You married me because you cared for me and knew I could care for you. You married me with the firm assumption that I would be able to provide you with the type of material possessions that you grew to enjoy under the employ of Sir Malcolm. Well, am I wrong?'

‘I thought you were different,' Rose said sullenly.

‘You have money and position. Wealth is position. And now you complain about how your comforts were acquired?'

‘You don't love me.'

Hamish touched her cheek. The pregnancy had rounded her
face and lent some maturity to the previously delicate bone structure. ‘I do care.' He had grown fond of her over the preceding months and was sorry for his continued absences. ‘You will feel better once the child is born.' Yet he couldn't say the word love. He'd only used it once before, a long time ago in another country. ‘Won't you come downstairs for a little while, Rose? I must leave in the morning.' He wanted to share his news with her. Finally a magnificent property some five hundred miles to the north of Ridge Gully was his. The original homestead had been destroyed in a fire and Hamish thought Rose would take great delight in discussing his plans for their new home. Women had a talent for decorating and Hamish hoped Rose would be enthralled for months choosing furnishings and wallpaper. ‘Please come downstairs. I have news.'

Her eyes, wide and accusing, stared back into his. ‘Go away.'

Hamish thought of the brooch in his pocket and quietly left the room.

Downstairs in the dining room he removed the decanter and glasses holding down the drawing of Wangallon homestead and rolled the paper up. His mind knew every detail – the thick mud brick walls white plastered, the large dining room and drawing room, the bedrooms, a place for Lee at the rear of the house near a vegetable garden and, of course, a separate kitchen with a covered walkway to the main house. His home would not be burning down due to an untended cooking fire. His hands twisted the paper tightly before throwing the sketches on the fire. It seemed Rose wouldn't need a copy.

Rose listened to the footsteps downstairs. She supposed she would just have to get used to being a Gordon. At least she would have a child to care for and love and she did have money, so she would not be wanting in that department but, as for her husband, well, he was that in name only. ‘Looks like it will just be you and me, little one.' As if in agreement, the child kicked fiercely. It was a kick that lasted into the late afternoon the following day, when not one, but two Gordon children cried for attention at the top of their lungs.