The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger (12 page)

Mattie Jane worked the butter churn, using both hands now that the lumps were forming and the handle was heavy to turn, and trying not to cough.

The consumption was still there. She’d learnt lots about it in the past two years, knew it lurked inside you, like a brown snake in the wood pile, ready to strike. Some weeks it seemed like it was hardly there at all. But consumption rotted your lungs slowly. She supposed that was why blood came now when she coughed too hard. One day the consumption would take too much of her lungs, and then she’d die.

But for now at least she could walk around, and help Martha with the work, even if she had to pause often to get her breath, and stop the world spinning like it was trying to do the polka all around her.

It was hard for her and Martha to keep the house going by themselves these days. There was no time to ride. She hadn’t been on Rebel Yell since her illness. She had to save her strength for her work. Her other
sisters had all married. James was married too, off rounding up brumbies now—glad to be out of the house, she thought, and to work with other people. Papa had sold most of the breeding mares. There were no big horse sales at Markdale any more, or men bringing their mares to be mated with Markdale stallions.

Markdale was a sad house now. Papa wouldn’t pay for servants or stockmen any more. The girls had to do the house and dairy work, and William, Elijah, Richard and Alfred had to work the farm.

And it would get worse soon. Martha was engaged to be married to Alex Frazer. Then it would be just Mattie Jane to care for Papa and her brothers. At least now Martha did the heavy work—boiled the washing in the copper, puddling it as the water simmered, hanging out the sheets, the trousers, folding them and bringing them in. The washing was lighter when it was dry, so Mattie Jane could help her iron it. Martha hung out the mats every week, as Mama used to do, and bashed them with the carpet beater to shake out the dust. The dust made Mattie Jane cough as well.

Mattie was eleven now. She could polish the furniture, mixing the beeswax and linseed oil to Mama’s recipe; could make pies and roast the meat. Her puddings were almost as good as Mama’s. But one girl couldn’t look after a houseful of men. Papa just didn’t notice. He never saw anything these days except his rum.

Mattie Jane shut her eyes, and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She tried not to think of Mama; tried not to cry when the work was too hard; when
the nights stretched long and lonely without Mama singing or playing the piano, or reading aloud to them by candlelight.

Mattie Jane opened the butter churn. The butter was in yellow lumps in the thin blue whey, ready to drain. The buttermilk was kept for drinking and washing her face and Martha’s, to keep their skin soft; the butter would be patted and shaped, some for the house and some to be kept in the barrel of salt water in the coolest corner of the dairy, for Martha to sell with the eggs in town.

Papa didn’t know Martha sold eggs and butter, or if he did he never said. The egg and butter sales bought them flour and tea, for Papa never gave anyone money now. Martha and Mattie could make soap, leeching the lye for the woolshed over the fire. They could use honey instead of sugar, make potato cakes instead of bread for breakfast. But they still needed flour on occasion and, just sometimes, the solace of real tea.

Mattie Jane was almost glad she was so thin. She hadn’t grown much since her illness. Her old dresses still fitted her well enough, though she’d had to darn the hems over and over. Hems grew ragged quickly when you had to work so hard, and didn’t have your hands free to lift them from the ground.

Elijah helped with the heavy washing sometimes, even though he was a boy. He carried their water too, and chopped the wood. Her other brothers mostly worked with the few horses they had left. Papa wouldn’t even go and look at the new foals. Mattie thought he hated the sight of new life—maybe because his own life had turned so sad.

Mattie rotated the cheeses, one by one. Martha would ring the dinner bell soon.

Dinner, with Papa silent at his end of the table. No one would sit in Mama’s place; her chair was kept empty as though one day she might just walk back in.

Mattie Jane squeezed her lips tight. It was no use. She cried so easily these days. Maybe if she sat here in the cool, with the smell of buttermilk…the smell of Mama’s skin…maybe she could cry all the tears away now, and not cry at all when there was anybody to see.

She was trapped. Trapped by her illness, by the work needed to keep house for her brothers. Trapped until she died, for no man would want a wife who spat blood when she coughed, who had consumption.

She shut her eyes, just for a moment. Imagined she was on Rebel Yell’s back, galloping down the road. A man was galloping to meet her. She couldn’t see his face: Mattie had only seen her brothers’ faces these past few years, and Dr Evans’s, and she didn’t want to imagine a face like theirs. But the man on the horse was coming to meet her. They’d ride away, him on his big brown horse and her on Rebel Yell.

Papa yelled something in the courtyard. Mattie opened her eyes. She’d have to go out again in a minute. Just in a minute.

Mattie Jane sat against the wall, and covered her face with her hands.

The master staggered across the courtyard, taking swigs from his stone jug. ‘Richard! Damn the boy! Richard!’

Martha peered out of the kitchen. ‘He’s down in the far paddock, Papa.’

‘I gave no orders for anyone to go down there.’

Martha hesitated.

‘Well?!’ The master’s voice was a roar. ‘Speak up, girl! I won’t have you whispering behind me. No secrets in my house! What is your brother doing?’

Martha put up her chin. ‘He’s going to take Dentist’s colt to Mr Picker, Father. Mr Picker has offered fifty pounds for him.’

The master’s face grew redder. ‘What is the boy doing, selling my horses? Am I master here or am I not?’

‘You are not.’ Richard strode around the corner.

‘How dare you, boy?’ The master lifted his arm but
Richard seized it and flung it back. He was bigger than the master, taller and broader too.

‘You’re a drunk old man, that’s what you are. Drinking away our farm, our inheritance. It’s only thanks to us that Markdale keeps going at all. And what do we get for it? No money in our pockets. It’s time we got a bit of what we deserve!’

‘Your inheritance?’ The master gave a bark of laughter. ‘You go whistle for your inheritance! This farm is mine. I’ll leave it where I will, not to an overgrown puppy who thinks he knows it all. Sell it if I want to.’

‘You old fool! We’ve worked our whole lives on this place.’

I neighed, nervous with the yelling. Suddenly Richard turned and marched off toward the far horse paddock.

‘Where do you think you are off to?’

‘To take Mr Picker the foal, as promised.’

‘Stop!’ The master put down his jug. He blinked, and then he said, ‘If the foal has been promised I will deliver it.’

Richard snorted. ‘You’d fall off before you got to the front gate. You’re drunk, old man.’

‘I can ride any horse in the county, drunk or not! I can beat you in a race any day.’

Richard laughed. ‘And break your neck!’

The master stared at him. ‘We’ll see, shall we? We’ll see who’s really master here! A race to town and back. If you win you can sell the foal, and damned to you. If I win you’ll obey me as you should. What do you say?’

‘Papa, no,’ began Martha. But the master ignored her.

‘You’re on!’

The faces looked so alike. Even their yells sounded the same.

‘I’m riding Country Boy,’ Richard added quickly.

The master grinned. It wasn’t a happy grin. ‘Think you’ve chosen the best horse on the farm, do you? I’ll match you on Rebel Yell.’

‘What? He hasn’t even been properly broke yet!’

‘Your sister rode him! A little girl!’

‘That was years ago. The dashed horse tried to bite me just last week.’

The master gave a bark of laughter. ‘A good horse knows a fool. He’ll not bite me. I’ll meet you at the front gate, and then you’ll eat your words.’

The master brought me apples. Only Mattie Jane had given me apples for a long time now. But I remembered how the master had given me apples before.

I remembered his hands too. His yells had frightened me. But his hands were still gentle. He tightened the saddle just as it should be. He stroked my nose as I crunched my apples.

‘We’ll show him, won’t we? Ah, you’re a lovely horse. A good boy now.’ His voice was soft as it had been when he first worked me. Then slowly, so I knew what was happening, he swung himself onto my back.

It was strange to feel his weight. I skittered nervously for a few moments, then stood still. Strange, but good. He wasn’t my Mattie Jane, but there was something about his voice, the way he knew just how to reassure me, that was like her.

My paddock gate was still open. The master pressed his knees into my sides to signal me to walk. And that felt good as well.

Out the gate, for the first time in so long. Down the road to the gate.

Richard was there already, on his big brown horse. I snorted at Country Boy to show what I thought. I was bigger than him, and stronger too.

Suddenly Martha and William Junior ran down the road behind us. ‘Papa!’ yelled Martha. ‘Don’t be a fool. The horse isn’t proper broke! You’ll fall and—’

‘Go back to your cook pots, girl. I never fall!’

‘I hope he does!’ yelled Richard from the other side. ‘Stubborn old fool! I hope he breaks every bone in his body. We’d be better off without him!’

The master dug his heels into my sides. I sped away down the road.

It was so good to gallop! So good to feel the wind against my coat—not the wind that growled across the paddocks, but the wind I created with my speed.

I could hear Country Boy pounding at my heels, but he would never catch us. I had my master on my back, and it was good. I had the hard road beneath my feet. I was the wind. I was the clouds racing through the sky.

The master crouched low upon my neck and my long legs ate up the road. I heard him laugh. It was a happy laugh this time. ‘You’re grand, lad! You wonderful lad! I should have done this two years ago! You and me, eh, boy, leaving it all behind!’

He laughed again. The wind around us was like a song.

Mattie sat with Martha at the kitchen table and tried to concentrate on the sock she was darning. Papa and Richard should have been home an hour ago!

William’s socks were mostly darns now. If Papa had let them keep some sheep they could have learnt to spin, and knitted new socks for all of them.

Papa…

He had looked so fine mounted on Rebel Yell. For a moment Mattie Jane had felt a pang that it was him, not her, up on the big horse. But Papa’s face was bright as it had been years ago, before Mama left. It had been good to see him so happy. It was good for Rebel Yell to gallop as he was meant to too. It had broken her heart to see him lonely in his paddock.

She hoped Rebel Yell won the race. He had to win! Richard was too cocky, trying to order them about. And if Papa won, maybe he’d take an interest in the horses again, make Markdale the joyful place it had been before.

Martha stood up and opened the stove door to throw in more wood. A stew bubbled on the stove: kangaroo haunch, potatoes, carrot and onions. William had shot the roo and the vegetables were from their garden. Roo meat needed long cooking to be tender.

Martha wiped the sweat from her forehead as she stood up, away from the hot stove, then glanced out the window. ‘Mattie! They’re coming back!’

Mattie’s heart leapt. ‘Who’s in the lead?’

Martha’s voice caught. ‘No one.’

‘But—’ Mattie Jane crowded beside her sister to look out the tiny window. (Papa had insisted that all the windows be small in case the house was attacked by bushrangers.)

Two horses trod slowly down the road. Richard sat on one, his head up defiantly, leading Rebel Yell by his reins. A man lay draped across the white stallion’s back.

‘Papa! He’s hurt!’ Mattie Jane ran toward the door.

‘No!’ Martha grabbed her shoulder. ‘Mattie Jane, sit down again. Stay here.’

‘But we need to help Papa.’

‘No.’ Martha’s voice shook, but her hands were firm. ‘Stay here.’ She hesitated. ‘If Papa were hurt Richard would have gone to get help.’

‘Then he’s—’ Dead, thought Mattie Jane. She sat, her legs suddenly unable to hold her. How? Papa wasn’t that old yet. Or was he? He had never told them his age.

Why had she never thought that Papa could die? She had faced her own death, but never his. It had
seemed like death was a private enemy, not one who’d carry off the people she loved as well.

Papa had yelled at them and made them poor. But he had sat with her, and cried with her when she was sick.

She loved him.

Now he was gone, and Mama too.

A dead man is heavier than a man who lives. I had not known that before.

The smell of blood scared me. The lifeless weight scared me as well. But this was my master, so I carried him as carefully as I could, so he didn’t slide off my back.

We plodded up the road to the house. The horses in the paddock next to us began to stamp and neigh.

Martha ran from the kitchen. Mattie Jane followed her more slowly. I saw in their faces that they knew the master was dead. Mattie was white.

William Junior ran up from the lower paddock. ‘Papa! Richard, what happened?’ He raised his voice. ‘Elijah! Alfred!’ His yell brought his brothers running from the paddock behind the house.

‘What happened?’ William Junior stared at the master’s body, and then up at Richard. Richard dismounted slowly and stood there, his fists clenching
and unclenching. The girls sobbed into their aprons as Elijah and Alfred lifted the master off the horse and placed him on the ground.

I stood there, uncertain. I wanted Mattie Jane to take my reins, to lead me to my paddock. I shifted from foot to foot, and whinnied. But Mattie Jane was staring at the master on the ground. Suddenly she sobbed, then coughed, and looked away, pressing her hand to her mouth.

Richard glared at his brothers. ‘It was Papa’s fault! I said he couldn’t control Rebel Yell. He hit a tree.’ Richard looked around as they all stared at him. ‘His head hit that tree trunk so hard you can see the mark. Like an axe had hit it. You can all go and see it for yourselves.’

Martha knelt and gently touched my master’s bloody head. His eyes were still open, staring at the sky. She tried to shut them but they sprang open again. ‘A man doesn’t leave a mark like an axe. Not on a tree.’

‘Well, he did,’ Richard’s voice rose in anger. ‘He was an old man! Too drunk half the time to run the place. Another year and we’d have been ruined. We can save all of this—’ he gestured at the house, the paddocks ‘—now that it belongs to us.’

Elijah had gone for a blanket. He and the girls wrapped my master’s body. But William Junior still stared at Richard.

‘What do you mean? He’s still warm and you’re criticising how he ran this place? Are you saying it’s
better
he’s dead?’

‘Don’t you see? Now it’s ours—we’ll make it pay again.’

‘Did you plan this, Richard? Are you saying you’ve
helped
us? That you’ve killed our father to safeguard your inheritance?’

‘No! I told you! Rebel Yell killed the old man, not me.’

‘Papa,’ said Mattie Jane. Her voice was soft. ‘That’s who he was. Papa.’ She coughed again, held a cloth to her mouth. When she brought it down it was red with blood. William Junior nodded at Elijah and Alfred. They lifted Billy in his blanket, and carried him inside.

That was the last time I ever saw my master.

Mattie Jane took me to my paddock. She took my saddle, and brushed me down. It made her cough, or maybe it was her crying, for she had to stop and rest many times before it was done. Then she walked slowly over to the storeroom, and came back with an apple. She held it out to me. My lips rasped her thin hand as I took it. For the first time ever I didn’t relish the taste. But it was a familiar, everyday sort of a thing to do. I always had an apple.

Mattie stroked me as I ate. ‘What happened?’ she asked me softly. ‘Only you and Richard really know. And Richard will never tell. Not if he’s done something wrong. Not if he killed—’ She bit her lip. ‘If only you could talk,’ she whispered.

I butted her with my nose to try to comfort her. She stood with her arm around me as the shadows gathered. Then she went inside.

Neighbours came, men, not women, on horses and in carts and buggies, all wearing black. No one smiled, or laughed or sang. No one brought me apples.

William Junior and Elijah carried a big wooden box onto the farm’s cart, and William Junior drove it away. The neighbours followed, then Elijah, Alfred and Richard, riding Dentist, Grace and Comet.

No one rode me.

I stood in my paddock, my head down low. No one except Mattie Jane had even looked at me since I had carried my dead master home.

Later, the boys rode back. They unsaddled their horses, hung the tack up. I waited for them to go inside, but instead they stood in the kitchen courtyard and began to argue once again.

They were always arguing now.

‘I tell you there’ll be an inquest! The police know something is wrong.’

‘Police!’ That was Richard. ‘What can they do? The old man fell from his horse. No one can prove different.’ He looked around the paddocks. ‘I say we sell the place. Or split it up, a piece for each of us.’

‘Who gave you the right to say what we’ll do? I’m the eldest son!’

‘And who’s to say what’s in Papa’s will?’ That was Elijah.

Richard snorted. ‘The old man didn’t make a will. I asked him.’

‘You asked!’ Suddenly William Junior’s fist shot out. He felled his brother with a punch to the jaw. Richard grabbed him by the knees and brought him down hard on the gravel of the courtyard. Suddenly they were all in it, William Junior, Richard, Alfred and Elijah. Martha screamed from the doorway, Mattie Jane peering behind her.

‘Stop it! Stop it, all of you! Our father was buried today!’

They took no notice.

Suddenly I lifted up my head. I’d heard something…something the boys were too intent to hear.

A horse, cantering down the road toward us.

It was a small horse, not coming very fast. Its hoofbeats sounded tired. It was one I’d never seen before.

I snorted. I knew the rider. The horse plodded into the yard. The rider dismounted, shook her skirts back into place and stared at the young men rolling on the ground. ‘What is it? What’s happening here?!’ she cried, and then, ‘Behave yourselves!’

The boys staggered to their feet. Richard’s face was bloody. William Junior had skinned his knees and fists.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded again.

The boys stared, panting and speechless.

‘Mama,’ whispered Mattie Jane.

I whinnied, and stretched out my neck across the fence toward her.

Annie had come home.