The Burial (22 page)

You can all do that
, said Jessie as she sat down next to the boy and, taking a small stick, began to draw her own map on the dirt.
But it is me they are after. I have done something unspeakable in the valley and I will not risk any of you for the sake of my own freedom. I'll meet them halfway down the mountain, and if I can I'll draw them in a chase back towards the valley. If you hide or travel further on for a while you will be able to return here eventually.

But we are a gang, miss. We do not sacrifice one for another
, said Joe.

I am sure it is me they want
, said Jessie
. I will not have any of you running on my behalf.

They all got busy disassembling the camp, starting at its perimeter and moving in. Its perimeter was marked on one side by the places they inhabited—the camp, the garden, the holding yard—and on the other side by a plummeting cliff. First they destroyed the holding yard by breaking down the woven branches with their feet and throwing them in every direction.

They moved to the garden then, setting aside what produce they could then turning over the soil so the garden would reveal nothing of itself. Despite their labour the soil was still a mesh of roots and green leaves and rich with dung. If one of the riders had come upon the camp and run his fingers through the soil its richness and darkness would hint at their presence. But now there was no time to conceal it otherwise, no time to bury the dirt itself, so they moved in towards the centre of the camp, pulling down hessian curtains and collecting in their arms anything that further told of them, separating it into two piles, one to pack and one to hide. All of it would have burnt easily as a pyre, but they could not risk it flaming up, signalling their position at the top of the mountain. So what they could not pack to take with them they rolled up and buried in the dark recesses of a cave, where they knew that no impatient man would bother to look.

When the camp was finally turned over and hidden, they stood again at the place where they had gathered earlier in the morning, around what was left of Joe's drawing on the ground. They squatted over it, as if trying to catch a closer look at their unknown future, and it was the boy who was the first to cry. Bill put her arm around him.

There's no time to waste with crying now
, said Joe.
It's a long way down and we can shed our tears as we go. Grab your saddles, gang, and divide this load among you. Bill, can you double the boy?

Jessie made a pack for herself and then she saddled up Houdini. She leant against him for a while and watched the gang. She knew it could be the last time she would ever see them. She savoured glimpses of them, their young hands passing things between them as if each thing was a gift in itself—a bridle, a rope, a tin. Each gesture between them looked to her to be a thing of grace.

When the gang was close to heading down, she led Houdini to the boy and said,
This is my only possession on earth and now I want you to own him. I know you are not fond of riding but, I promise you, Houdini will never let you down, as long as you care for him.

The boy did not say a word but took the reins from her hand and with her help mounted Houdini. He looked so light and small on Houdini's back.

Miss
, he said,
I believe you. Now will you walk us out? Me and Houdini and Ned?

Jessie walked close to Houdini and Ned trailed them slowly down the track to the ridge where Joe and the others were gathering.

Soon all of their horses were lined up on the edge of the ridge. Jessie looked out beyond them. Here was a sky rippling without end. She patted Houdini and squeezed the boy's ankle and said,
Love him
, and the boy said,
I will.

She made her way along the line to Joe, who was leaning down from his horse and offering his hand. She took it in both of hers.

You are a good man, Joe
, she said.
Thank you for counting me as one of you.

You are one of us
, said Joe, and he took back his hand and swung his horse out and stepped it down the ridge with the others to follow.

Bill went next and she winked at Jessie and smiled.
Maybe next time you see me, I'll have grown my hair out and I'll not call myself Bill.

Bill is as fine a name as anyone could want, given or chosen
, said Jessie.
You can call yourself whatever you want now. Whatever feels true.

Miss Jessie
, said Bill. She halted on the ridge.
Remember, that man chasing you? He cannot reach you.
Bill pointed upwards.
Look at Pleiades. That man, he's already locked in the sky.

I will miss you
, said Jessie.

Bill nodded and moved her horse down and the others followed close behind. Jessie stepped back to let them pass. She sat and watched as each horse and rider disappeared below the ridgeline. When they were all out of sight, she listened to the scraping of hooves on the rocks and the sound of hooves folding in among other hooves.

She took a branch from the ground and, stepping back the way she had come, swept away their tracks all the way to the camp, where there was nothing left but her knife, her gun and the small pack she had saved. She walked to the lookout and stationed herself there, listening for the sounds of men moving up the other side of the mountain. She looked down on the rocks and the trees and all the things under the sun that would outlast her or any of them. Within the trees now, she knew, was everything that she had ever wished to escape from, all violence and all fear. It had multiplied and was moving up the mountain to find her.

She listened for them. She listened with all of her intent but there was a sound that echoed in her head. It was the words she had just spoken—
I will miss you.

She moved down.

She did not make fires in the day but allowed herself a small fire at night to cook a snake or wallaby that she caught. She did not use her gun but hunted in silence with her knife or her hands. When she came upon a snake she would grab its tail from behind and snap it, as clean as she would crack a whip, and that was the most noise she made. She was cautious of killing legged creatures for their screeching as they fought, but if they wandered in sight and, better, within reach, she killed them as swiftly and as quietly as she could.

She slept in caves or upon some scrubby surface, any place that would not hold her impression or give her away. She walked, when she could, in darkness and found a pace that was almost silent. Most days she walked barefoot carrying her boots under her arms in case she came across anything she could eat and needed to save. She walked for so long that there were moments she forgot why she was walking at all. But then the birds would sound loudly at some point in the day, as if their calls were a warning and she must remember to listen beyond them for the sounds of men riding solo and in packs.

She walked on, stealthily, disturbing nothing that she did not want to eat. She felt herself to be no more than a two-legged creature, roaming and hunting and sleeping. She moved along, one foot then the other. She thought that even animals must sense their fate, and as she had seen, some of them did not run from it. If death was to be her fate she would not deny it, but nor would she put her head straight into its mouth. She imagined herself then to be one of those creatures whose nature was not to run from death but to run alongside it.

JACK BROWN AND Barlow rode into the mountains and the mountains rose up around them. Jack Brown could see a confusion of tracks and he wondered how long it would take for the tracks to sink into the earth or be blown clean. He was aware, as they rode, that they were leaving their own tracks too. And as they rode higher and higher into the mountains they were being remembered by some lost world, some world beyond time.

It was nothing he could name or describe to Barlow.

You don't have to find someone dead in their tracks to prove it was their tracks
, was all he said, from sun-up to sundown. He swayed them towards the highest mountain. Barlow trailed behind.

THE NIGHT WAS too bright to walk unobserved so Jessie slept in a cave. She wound her hair up and used it to pillow her head against the rock. She slept easily and dreamt of a swirling universe and when she woke she did not know what it was or why she saw it. She lay in the cave that was still dark, well concealed as it was from the sun that had already risen, that its shallow entrance did not allow in. Then her blood surged as she heard voices. Frozen in fear, one ear to the rock, the other to the hollow and dark of the cave, she could not tell if they were within the cave or above it. The voices folded around her. They were loud but she could not tell what they were saying. She waited, pressing against the rock, not daring to breathe until the voices passed, waiting until she could hear nothing but the birds cawing into the day.

It was broad daylight as she tracked them but she could have tracked them in the deepest dark with a mile between them. There were four of them and they rode messy and loud and she could not imagine how they would have found her unless they had tripped over her, which they almost did. She followed them all day as they warred against the bush with their blades and their guns, as if the trees themselves were another and certain enemy. By early afternoon she could tell they were worn out. From behind she could see them woozy and swaying, their weapons slack against their calves.

She walked at a pace that relied on them moving steadily. Some of the ground was uneven and patchy with branches they had cut down, and these sliced her feet and sounded her steps and she felt the tension of having to keep a distance so they would not hear her.

When it was dark she moved closer in and hid in the low scrub. They lit a fire and the smell of something cooking on it turned her stomach for her hunger. She chewed on a bit of bark then spat it out so it did not splinter her throat.

She could hear them shouting at each other. She could see them, the four of them, through the split of branches, their faces lit up. She watched them, and when their shouting dropped away she feared they had spotted her.

She waited but nothing happened. She looked again. She hoped they had passed out. She could only see one of them who was still upright, his arms folded across his chest. She was not close enough to tell if he was sleeping or watching the fire.

She waited until she could not wait anymore. Her feet were itchy with scratches and she was too hungry to be still. She crawled in closer, close enough to see the horses were tied up in a cluster but on the other side of the men.

She began to step around the outside of their camp in a wide arc, but without the cover of their movements and their shouting the bush made so much noise that she was sure to wake them. She could go out wider but now, closer in, she could see that they were camped beneath a ledge of rock and she determined that she could shuffle over it and climb down behind their horses. She strapped her gun down her back and tied her knife to her arm but her boots would drag on the rock so she left them behind.

She crawled to the ledge, sacrificing skin for silence as her knees and elbows took the brunt of her slow, dragging movements. From the ledge, she could see all of them. She could not see the faces of the ones lying down, but the one sitting up looked ghastly; his head was back and his mouth was open and he need only open one eye to be looking directly at her.

She tried to stay back in the shadows, but even the shadows seemed well lit by the bright sky and the ledge was close enough that she could feel the heat of their campfire. She crawled on. When she was above their horses she began to claw down the face of the rock, hoping with each step down that her hands and feet would find another groove close enough so she did not have to jump.

When her feet touched the ground the earth was warmer and more comforting than anything she had felt. She surveyed their horses and began to soothe the best-looking one, patting its neck, lowering her eyes. She swung herself up. And then, taking its mane, she set off, right through the camp, the fastest way out of there, heading towards the track she had followed them on all day.

She did not look back but knew the sound of the horse splitting through their camp would wake them. She bolted down the uneven track as fast as she could and for a moment was grateful for the almost-full moon that lit the track. But then she heard a shot and she knew that in this light her back would be as visible as the moon itself and though she only heard one shot, she knew it would not be the last. Death was on her.

JACK BROWN AND Barlow thought they heard the lowing of cattle as they travelled up the mountain, but moving further up, towards the source of the sound, they realised it was not cattle they heard. The sound seemed to come from inside the mountain itself. It was shifting and strange. Eventually they explained it away as the wind blowing through splices of rock, and that same wind pushing and echoing into deeper chambers.

They rode on.

They saw no human or horse tracks. It was late in the day when Jack Brown spotted a path to a stony ridge that led up to the mouth of a cave. They secured their horses to a tree and then began to climb up the ridge that was steep and loose with rocks. Their boots were made for riding horses not climbing ridges, so they slipped and scrabbled, taking turns to offer a hand up or find a foothold. By the time they reached the lip of the ridge they were sweating and panting and their fingers smarted from clinging to the rock face. They heaved themselves up over the top of the ridge and as they sighted the opening of the cave, a huge bird flew out of it and swiped their heads.

Fuck me! What was that?
said Barlow.

I don't fucking know
, said Jack Brown.
But it fucking parted the hair of my head and the hair on my arse as well.

They sat panting on the ridge like two old men, watching the bird fly out over the escarpment. Despite its size, it soon disappeared from view.

They were cautious about entering the cave. Barlow leant in and lit a match and held it out in front of him, which did little to illuminate it.