The Bark Cutters (13 page)

‘Come on,' she cried. Her horse was nearly level with Cameron's horse. With an almighty stretch her fingers reached for the loose reins just as a large log came into view. She watched uselessly as the horse cleared the fallen timber. Cameron rose slightly into the air before hitting the log with a sickening crunch. The force of the impact tore the stirrup trapping Cameron's foot from the saddle. As Cameron's horse cantered off, Sarah turned back towards where her brother lay. She jumped from her horse. Gingerly, wordlessly, she pushed him onto his back. His face was pale, scratched and bloody, his long-sleeved blue shirt in threads, moleskin trousers ripped. Blood oozed from deep wounds in both legs.

‘Shit,' Cameron mumbled amid wheezing gasps of air.

Sarah held his hand, gently touching his cheek. From the wound near his temple, blood and white muscle meshed together to run freely into his eye and hair, and began to pool in the grass. Removing her camera hanging from her shoulder and light sweater, Sarah tore strips of material from her shirt-tail, ripping madly at the cotton with her teeth. Cameron's head, angled slightly to one side, revealed the lump of a broken collarbone; a leg and arm were angled awkwardly away from his body. Sarah looked down at the scrap of material and pulled her shirt off.

‘Cam, everything will be fine. Really,' she swallowed as she wadded her shirt on the head wound and lay her sweater across his chest. The injuries were bad. She would have to leave him to get help. It was then that she noticed the sharp end of a small sandalwood stump protruding from his stomach. About her, the paddock was quiet, the birds still. They were a good few miles from the house, from the two-way radio, from help.

‘I'm cold, Sarah.'

‘I know, I know.' She squeezed his hand. His eyes were filling
with tears. Sarah wiped blood from his face. ‘I love you.' The words seemed too little. She leaned close to his face, his hand tight in hers. This wasn't happening. How could this be possible? They had just been talking. How could her brother possibly be hurt? ‘Cameron, can you hear me? How bad is the pain?' Should she leave him and ride for help? Her horse was grazing only a few metres away. Unsheathing her pocket knife, she cut the arm off her sweater and gently mounded the material around the stomach wound.

‘Anthony,' he whispered, ‘loves you. He'll watch out for you, always.'

As a rush of blood trickled from his mouth, Sarah bent low, closer to his face, her long hair resting on his shoulder. His breath sounded like a rush of wind hurrying to pass through the drying stems of grass.

‘Cameron?'

Lying in the grass in the mid-morning sun, Cameron looked beyond her towards some distant object. Then his breathing stilled.

Sarah followed her father and Anthony as they carried him through her grandfather's house. At each step they staggered, their boots dragging, their faces pale and sweaty with shock. Her mother was screaming, screaming and bashing the walls. Sarah wanted to hit her, to stuff her mouth with a towel to stop her from crying out as her own body swayed from side to side, like a ride at an amusement park. She felt the adrenalin surge, but there was nowhere for it to escape. Palpitations rose in her chest.

Her grandfather cleared his oak dining room table of its solid silver candelabra with one almighty swipe. It was there they laid Cameron, his spurs, a tenth-birthday present, striking deep
into the same wood that had embraced previous generations. His hands quivering like bowls of Anzac Day jelly, her father kept patting him, as if making sure he was comfortable. Ronald's face was red and bloated, oozing tears of disbelief.

‘Christ Almighty!' he cried. ‘Christ Almighty!'

Angus studied the distorted angle of his grandson's beautiful head. With a devastated look at Ronald, his face creased in distress, from incomprehension to profound sadness. The old man removed the bloody shirt and, with a damp washer, gently wiped blood and dirt from Cameron's mouth, eyes and cheeks. Finally he placed a clean folded tea towel across the stomach wound.

‘My boy, my dear boy.' Sue began repeating the words like a mantra, as if only just realising that her son was dead. ‘I told you, Sarah, I told you I didn't want him to go.'

Sarah watched as her mother repeatedly touched Cameron's cold face. If anyone could will her brother back to life it would be their mother, and for a brief fantastical moment, Sarah believed it possible. Sarah let her eyes roam over the length of the body before her. She studied the moleskin legs and riding boots, stared at the tanned skin turned pale, at the blue-grey fingernails. She reached out to hold fast to his left leg, dimly aware of Anthony's grip on her shoulder as he placed a blanket across her shoulders and bloody white singlet.

‘Oh God, Cameron.' She couldn't look at his face or into his eyes, those same eyes that had begun to fade as he lay in the spinafex under a hot mid-morning sun. They were the eyes of the person who loved her most in the world, whom she adored in return. She was afraid of what she wouldn't see.

‘You stupid girl.'

Sarah looked blankly at her mother.

Sue pulled herself up from where she had crumpled onto the floor. ‘You've done this.'

‘For heaven's sake, Ronald,' Angus shouted, ‘get Sue out of here.'

‘Let go of me.' Sue tried to extricate herself from Ronald's restraining arms. ‘You don't care about him,' she spat at her husband. ‘How could you? You're not his father!'

‘My God, Sue. Think about what you're saying,' Ronald exclaimed sadly.

‘It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters.' Pulling herself free of her husband Sue straightened her back and, with a last desolate look at her son, walked from the room.

Sarah looked from her father to her grandfather. ‘What?' Instantly her grandfather took her in his arms, her body engulfed by his strong, burly frame.

‘Cameron was your half-brother, girl,' Angus said gruffly. ‘Sue had an affair.'

Sarah's brain was filled with moving pictures. Her head began to pound; a baby screaming, a man, a stranger, the brother who was not her brother.

‘Sarah? Sarah, are you all right?'

Her chest felt tight, her lungs constricted.

‘Anthony, look after her, will you,' Angus passed Sarah into his arms. ‘We have to …' he hesitated. ‘Ronald, you better get a sheet, lad.'

Ronald, his whole body shaking, could only nod.

‘It's okay, son,' Angus took his own son into his arms. ‘It's okay.'

‘But you knew he wasn't mine.'

Angus patted his son's back roughly. ‘It's okay. It's okay.'

Sarah let Anthony wash the blood from her hands. She put on the shirt he offered, drank water from the glass he brought. Later,
after the ambulance took Cameron away, Anthony stayed with her. They held each other long into the night, leaning against the wall of the dining room, the room to which her brother would never return.

Sue Gordon dressed carefully. From her wardrobe she selected a navy skirt and matching jacket – the shoulder padding adding form to her plump figure. A white shirt, gold earrings and a gold ring completed her outfit. Without bothering to check her appearance in the full-length mirror, she walked sedately to Cameron's bedroom, closed the door and sat quietly on his bed. His dirty clothes still sat in a heap in the corner of his room, his bed remained unmade and the dressing table with its cut-off cotton reels, a remnant of his great-grandfather's, lay strewn with cassettes. Her fingers clutched at the bedclothes, the material scrunching between the tightness of her grasp. Only last night her boy had come to her in her dreams. They both had.

Sue first looked into the unfathomable blue of Tom Conroy's eyes at her wedding. Later she would recall the exact moment as a small gift from the angels, if there were such things. Walking down the aisle arm in arm with her new husband, Tom, a stranger to her then, had smiled and winked at her. It was as if they shared a secret, some tremendous thing known only to them. Later, at the reception, they had danced. Not once out of politeness, but twice. Even now it seemed such an innocent thing to do. After all he was Wangallon's wool buyer, a position that held much credence in bush society circles. On honeymoon in Fiji, Ronald later complimented her on the courtesy she extended to their business associates and clients. In the months ahead he would come to understand the extent of her largesse.

Sue never intended to betray her husband. Ronald was a good,
honest man, simple in his desires and pleasantly outgoing in character. A chance meeting at the now defunct Australia Hotel graduated swiftly to dinners in Sydney, trips to the theatre and nights of dancing. It was the type of lifestyle Sue was not only used to, being the daughter of a barrister, but one she attended to with delight. Of course her parents' aspirations were limited by their desire to see her well matched, and Ronald Gordon, as heir to Wangallon Station, was certainly one of the catches of the sixties.

Two visits later it was the Wangallon homestead that won her over. It was a gorgeous symphony of faded elegance. Solid silver items were strewn deliciously through a series of interconnected entertaining rooms that fanned out from the original dining room like an enticing jigsaw. Ancient oil paintings of family members, objets d‘art in the form of porcelain figurines and art deco pieces, complete sets of French crystal stemware and English crockery all competed for her attention. And the furnishings – two-seater couches, armchairs, settees and daybeds – the majority covered in rich brocades. Of course there was also a cook and a gardener as her mother-in-law, Angie, was involved in any number of causes.

Only after their engagement did Sue discover that a simple three-bedroom house, unimaginatively dubbed West Wangallon, was to be her home. Ronald's answer to her arch complaint consisted of an incredulous: ‘What did you expect?' Indeed, for some weeks Sue repeatedly asked herself the very same question. Her assumptions included regular trips to Sydney, which, she was advised, were only once a year at Easter for two weeks. And there were no staff. Sue was young, after all. Her home and garden were less than a third of the size of Wangallon homestead. Ronald asked her why would they need staff? Sue had no answer.

When Tom visited six months later during shearing, Sue's initial disappointment had grown to frustration. What on earth
was she really expected to do out here in the middle of nowhere? The men worked from dawn to dusk. There was no corner store, no theatre and certainly no fashionable shops. She was bored and disinterested. She had taken to sleeping in the spare room, for she realised her imagined fairytale was non-existent.

Her beautiful Cameron was the result of her and Tom's consuming passion. Her pregnancy took Ronald by surprise; they both knew the child wasn't his and his hastily planned trip to Scotland amid unspoken accusations gave Sue the space and clarity she needed. Not once did she consider the ramifications of her affair. Indeed Sue's only thought was for Tom. However, she waited for her husband's return, knowing she owed Ronald an explanation. Yet by the time Ronald returned Tom was already gone. His life had been destroyed by a low-life thief, just when Sue decided to flee Wangallon and run to him. She learnt of Tom's death nearly a week after he had been found in some alley in Sydney. Ronald's brief explanation started with: ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, remember Tom Conroy …'
Her
Tom killed in a robbery. His money and watch stolen, his head bashed in. ‘Found in Kings Cross. Can you believe it?' Ronald elaborated a day or so later, remarking on why a man like that would be visiting such a place. Yet he had spoken of Tom kindly and Sue recalled, waited on her with the doting expectation of a father-to-be.