The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger (9 page)

He showed Annie the paper.

She looked at him in alarm. ‘What are you thinking of? Men get hurt in races! Why, a man died just last week, and another had his back broke.’

Of course, he thought, she gets to read the Drapers’ paper, here in town. She’d know more’n me about what goes on in the colony.

‘The prize money is enough to buy a farm.’ He looked at her, across the kitchen table, over the broad beans she was podding. ‘Enough to ask you to marry me.’

She was silent, looking down at the bowl of beans.

‘What do you say?’ he urged at last. ‘Will you marry me if I can win the race?’

It wasn’t a romantic declaration. He knew it wasn’t romance she wanted.

She looked up, her dark eyes meeting his. ‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘Mr Marks…there is someone else. A partner of Mr Draper’s. He owns the hotel, and a couple of shops too.’

‘And a top hat?’ Billy remembered the man he’d seen.

She nodded.

‘A rich man?’

‘Yes. He’s rich. His first wife died…’

‘And now he’s looking for another?’

She nodded again.

‘Has he asked you?’ The words twisted out without him knowing he was going to say them.

‘Yes.’

His heart seemed to stop. ‘What have you said?’

‘I said maybe,’ she answered truthfully. ‘I said wait till his wife has been dead a year, and ask me then. If we marry too soon people will talk.’

‘You said yes!’

‘I said
maybe
, that’s all! You think I’d let you sit here if I’d said yes?’

‘But you will say yes to him,’ said Billy quietly.

‘I don’t know. That’s the truth. I just don’t know.’

He stood up, and folded the paper under his arm. ‘I’ll be racing Saturday. You can come and watch me if you like.’

‘No! It’s dangerous! You’re a fool to think of such a thing!’

‘A fool, am I?’ He picked up his hat. It no longer looked new, though he kept it just for these visits to Annie, and brushed it in between. ‘We’ll see about that on Saturday.’

It’s the first time, he thought, as he walked down the path, that she hasn’t brought out an apple for Conservative.

He had never seen so many men, so many horses. Neither had Conservative. The big horse blew through his teeth, and skittered to one side when a passing cart spooked him.

They tethered him with the other racehorses, and Roman John stayed to guard him while Billy put the money down to race. Horses waiting to race could have their knees cut, or be fed laudanum, said Roman John. You needed to keep an eye on your mount till just before the race.

Billy watched as his name and Conservative’s were entered in the race book: ‘grey stallion, age unknown, no previous prizes, owner William Marks’.

Someone was selling pies; other stalls sold rum, or gin, or lemonade. Ladies lifted their silk skirts over the dirt, next to bushies with cabbage-tree hats and trousers tattered to their knees.

Bookmakers yelled odds from their tables under the trees. ‘Ten to one on the favourite! Six to one…’

Billy stopped. Why had he never thought of betting?

Because he’d never been to a race meeting since he was a lad back in England. Race meetings meant good pickings for pickpockets.

If he won the race he’d make a hundred pounds. But if he bet on himself and Conservative to win he might make twice that, or even three times…

But most of his money was in the bank. He had another ten pounds in case the entrance money was more than he thought, and a few shillings.

No time to get the rest. He scouted from one to another till he found the best odds: ten to one. He had hoped it would be higher. Someone must have seen Conservative in the paddock.

One chance. One chance only. If he lost he’d have lost two months’ hard work. He’d have lost Annie too. If he won…ten times ten…

Another hundred pounds.

He felt dizzy. It wasn’t the heat. It was knowing that this was the best chance he’d ever have.

He stumbled over to the paddock and nodded to Roman John without explaining what he’d done. Conservative rolled his eyes, showing the whites. He was nervous.

Well, thought Billy, so am I.

He led Conservative to the saddling ground. The horse danced around as he tried to tighten the girth. He wasn’t happy, and he showed it. Suddenly he whinnied. Billy looked up.

‘William!’

It was the first time she hadn’t called him Mr Marks.

Annie wore a high-brimmed hat trimmed with roses, and a light blue dress. She ducked under the railings and ran up to him, holding her skirts out of the muck, dodging the other horses.

‘You’ve come to wish me luck?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve come to ask you not to do it!’

She took his hand. It was the first time she had touched him. Her skin felt soft and warm. ‘I made up my mind. It’s you I want. I’ve saved thirty-four pounds; you’ve got your savings. We can get married with that. But don’t race. Please.’

‘Will you still marry me if I do?’ I’ve only got about fifty pounds now, he thought. I have to run this race…

She met his eyes. ‘Yes. Win or lose, I’ll marry you.’ She patted Conservative, then reached into her reticule and took out an apple. ‘Should he eat before the race?’

It was too late. The horse had crunched it. He butted Annie gently to show his pleasure, and she patted his nose again. ‘Good luck,’ she said—to the horse, not to Billy—and kissed Conservative’s black nose.

Billy watched her stride off across the paddock, saw the men admiring her. But none it seemed dared approach her. Was there another woman in the whole of New South Wales who’d stride like that?

He lifted his hand and stroked Conservative’s nose. ‘Well, boy. Looks like we’ve got to win.’

It had been a long time since I felt confused like this. I was used to farms, to cantering down the roads with Billy on my back.

Now we seemed lost in a crowd of men and horses. The horses smelt of fear, and the sweat that horses get when they are about to fight.

Were we about to fight on this grassless paddock? Why? I wanted to get away somewhere quiet where there was only me and Billy, and Annie perhaps, with a whole bag of apples…

I pulled at the tether. Most times Billy knew what I was trying to say. But he seemed intent on something I couldn’t understand.

He led me to another paddock, a big round one. There were fewer horses here. I was glad. But the fighting smell was even stronger.

He put the saddle on my back. It was lighter than the one I usually wore, and smelt of another horse. I stamped a bit at the unfamiliarity. A stallion yelled at
me from not far away. I tried to rise to meet his challenge, but Billy tugged my tether down.

I heard the ringing sound, and then a whooshing sound. A whip!

I stamped, even more uncertain now. I had to get away! I had to—

And suddenly Annie was there. She even had an apple. I crunched it, Annie on one side of me, with her good familiar smell of flour and apples, Billy on the other side, smelling of me. They patted me, and Annie bumped me with her nose. I felt better then.

It didn’t last.

Annie walked away. Billy tugged on my reins. He led me to a spot where other horses stood in a line. I stamped again. I tried to get away. But Billy held me firm. ‘Please,’ he whispered. ‘Please. For me.’

I quietened enough for him to scramble up onto my back. But even he felt strange in the new saddle. I lunged at the horse next to me. Billy pulled at the reins.

‘No, Conservative. No!’

‘Get ready, gentlemen!’

All at once I heard a shot. I reared a little, at the shock. Billy dug his heels into my sides, and lashed down with the rein. ‘Run, boy, run!’ he yelled.

On either side of me the riders slashed their horses with their whips.

I reared again, caught in the memories of pain.

I could feel Billy struggling to stay on, hear Annie scream beyond the paddock fence. ‘William!’

My feet touched the ground again. Billy hauled at my reins. His heels dug into my sides. In front of me the other horses surged away in one great thundering mob.

And suddenly I knew what to do.

I took off at a gallop. Billy crouched low on my neck, the reins loose now. ‘Go, boy! Go!’ he growled.

They were far ahead of me now. It was like the times we had raced the wind. Even I can’t catch the wind. But I could catch those other horses. I was the King!

My head hung low. I dug my hoofs into the ground, feeling it fly past below me.

We had nearly caught up with them! But they were so tightly pressed together I couldn’t get into the mob, much less take the lead.

I headed to the outside, just as Billy urged me to do the same. We knew what to do, me and Billy!

My breath came in gasping pants. On…and on…and on…

I was level with the other mob now, but three horses still streamed ahead of us.

The yells of humans were like a wall of noise around me. But I hardly cared. All I could see were those other horses, far ahead.

I pounded down the track. And suddenly the pack was behind me. There were only two horses in front of us now. We were nearly back where we had started.

Vaguely I could feel Billy leaning down against my neck. My breath laboured as I pushed myself. Faster and faster still…

I was gaining on another horse. I could hear its breath rasping in its throat. Or was that mine? My mane and tail streamed behind me, as though we truly galloped with the wind.

One horse behind me, one to go. The human noise was a long shrill scream around us, but I didn’t care. Suddenly I knew I could run like this forever!

Nearer and nearer. As we drew level the man riding the other horse tried to lash his whip against my eyes. He missed. He lashed again. I heard Billy swear. I would have bitten the other rider, but it was more important to pass him now, to run beyond them all.

Suddenly I felt Billy pulling on my reins. Behind me the other horses were stopping too. Every horse was behind me, even the last, his head down, his breath coming in long sobs. I was gasping too, my sides heaving, trying to draw in air, sweat streaming down my neck and sides.

Billy’s breath came in tiny cries. He bent down over my neck again to pat me. ‘We’ve won, boy! We’ve won!’

I didn’t understand the words. But I knew what I’d done.

I was the King.

He didn’t quite believe it. Conservative was still carrying his head and tail high, as though the big horse was ready to race again, to beat every horse here today if they would let him.

Somewhere, in the part of Billy’s mind that was still thinking, he knew that there’d be offers to mate Conservative with half the mares in the colony now, after a race like that. Even without the prize money, his stallion was worth a fortune.

They’d been halfway down the track, so far behind. He had been sure they’d come in last, if they finished the race at all, everybody laughing at the raw horse and his rider. But then that finish—they’d not only caught horses with a minute’s start on them, they’d finished three lengths in front.

Conservative stood as though he owned the unsaddling paddock. There was no sign of fear now. It was as if the big horse ruled the world.

Billy slid down onto the ground, Conservative’s reins still in his hands. Dimly he was aware of men clapping him on the back; an urgent offer to buy the horse for three hundred pounds.

He shook his head. Sell Conservative? Never. They’d win again, him and the horse. And they’d breed the best horses in the colony.

Roman John limped toward him. Annie pushed through the press of men, not even bothering to hold up her skirts this time.

Annie…

He’d won a race and won a wife. He couldn’t think of anything grander in the world.

He went to the Land Office as soon as it opened on Monday.

He thought it would be easy to find a farm to buy, with so many men walking off their land. But the land they walked off was either far away, or it was dry, with no water for the stock to drink. He was leaving the Land Office when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘Mr William Marks?’

He turned. ‘That’s me.’

The stranger was a few years older than Billy, tall and dark-haired, wearing a good suit and a silk top hat. He thought of the man in the top hat who’d courted Annie, and grinned to himself. That Top Hat wasn’t getting Annie now.

The man gave a polite bow. ‘I saw your name in today’s paper. Congratulations, Mr Marks. I gather it was a fine race you rode.’

‘I had a fine horse.’

‘I went down to the camp-ground but your partner told me you had come here. My name is Goldberg. Mr Marks, will you please excuse me, but are you a Hebrew?’

‘Am I what?’

‘A Hebrew.’ The man looked at him patiently. ‘I know it is impertinence, Mr Marks, but the matter is urgent. The widow of a friend of my father asked me to find you. Her name is Mrs Moses. It was Mrs Moses who first saw your name in the newspaper. She has no sons, Mr Marks, and she needs ten men to make a Minyan, a congregation, to say Kaddish for her late husband. Do you know what Kaddish is, Mr Marks?’

‘It’s the prayer said for the dead,’ said Billy automatically, then added, ‘Why did you think I might be Hebrew?’

Mr Goldberg looked at him shrewdly. ‘Your name. A hope. But you do know what Kaddish is. Are you a Hebrew then, Mr Marks?’

Billy was about to shake his head. Jewish, Christian…whatever his parents had been was nothing to do with him. He’d been a pickpocket and a convict. Now he was about to be a married man. He hadn’t even thought about who would marry them, he realised, or even where they would be married. Not a church, he thought instinctively. At the town hall maybe…

Kaddish. A Hebrew prayer. Did he even know the words to it? Traditions hidden so deep in his brain, like all his memories of family. Memories buried so deep they could no longer hurt.

But even as he thought about not remembering, memories swam back: the scent of his mother’s dress,
his father’s big hand holding his, reciting words. Men sitting in a room, in shawls and skull caps.

No, he thought. That’s not who I am now.

It had been so long since he had thought of his dead family. So much had been lost because the memories were too heavy to survive.

Had anyone said Kaddish for his father? Did he even care? It was survival that mattered, things you could touch.

He was about to shake his head, to walk back to Annie and her kitchen. That was his world now. But something in the man’s face stopped him.

‘Please. It matters a great deal to Mrs Moses.’

He had so much now…would have, soon, at any rate.

What could it hurt? To say the words for a dead man, if someone could teach them to him in time. A few breaths of comfort for his wife. If he died wouldn’t he want someone to comfort his Annie?

‘I know Kaddish.’ He smiled. ‘It is about all I do know. At least I hope I do. I don’t go to synagogue. I don’t go to any church. I don’t call myself a Hebrew either, these days.’

‘If we help with the words, will you say Kaddish with us for Mr Moses?’

‘I will say Kaddish.’

Mr Goldberg had a carriage waiting. The dust rose about the wheels, mixed with the dried droppings of the horses and the milk goats that grazed along the footpaths.

How long had it been since it rained?

It had always rained, it seemed, when he was
young, back in England, near the sea. Suddenly the memories came again, swift as a creek after the rain. And sitting in this fine carriage as though he had the right to it, knowing Annie was waiting for him, he let the memories come.

Sitting on Mama’s lap while she read him a story, pointing out the words so he’d learn them too. How was it he remembered how to read, but had forgotten her soft voice till now?

Papa, tall as the doorway. What work had Pa done? He couldn’t remember. Perhaps had never known. You don’t question when you’re small. But there was a cottage, he knew that, and mint at the back door. Ma had sent him out to pick a handful of mint to make tea for their cough.

But it was a fever, not a cough, that killed them. He remembered Mrs Haddock from next door, taking him to sleep with her sons. His parents must have been sick then. His throat grew tight.

There had been arguments in the Haddock household. Had Mrs Haddock wanted to keep him? The journey in the cart to the workhouse, the long rows of pallets on the dusty floor. No, not dusty, for they had scrubbed it themselves every day.

Then at last Master Higgins, sitting on the chair in the workhouse office, beaming at him. Knowing as they walked down the steps, the stink of boiled cabbage and potato gruel behind them, that here was a second chance. A new life.

Master Higgins had stopped at a bakery and bought him a big loaf: day-old, but all for him. He’d eaten every crumb before they’d walked ten paces, he was so starved. And Master Higgins had patted his
head. ‘You be a good manikin,’ he said. ‘You got a new fambly now. You work hard and ye’ll not be hungry again.’

And now he had
another
’second’ chance. With Annie. How many chances did you get in a lifetime? And how could you even know it was a second chance that had been offered if no one told you?

It was strange to be chanting—stumbling through—these kinds of words again. Almost as though he belonged.

But he didn’t know these men. Two, at least, didn’t know the others either; they had been recruited by Mr Goldberg, just like him. One was an old man, half-blind, who never spoke, as though his memory of all words had left him, except the words of Kaddish. The other was a boy, thirteen maybe, his grandson perhaps, who led the blind man by the hand.

Thirteen. Old enough to say, ‘Now I am a man.’ Billy had been a skilled pickpocket at thirteen. But he remembered the words of Kaddish. He had never said Kaddish before, but he had heard the words so many times in that sweet lost world of his childhood.

And then it was over. They nodded to each other. Those who were friends began to walk away together. Billy was about to leave too when Mr Goldberg stopped him.

‘Mr Marks?’

He would have smiled if it hadn’t been for the solemnity of the ritual they’d just shared. ‘You want me to say Kaddish again?’

Mr Goldberg did smile at that. ‘Perhaps. But that
is not what I wanted to say.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Mr Marks, Mrs Moses and my father were partners. She has inherited several properties, but she has no wish to run them.’ He shrugged. ‘In short, Mr Marks, she would like to sell one to you. It’s called Slete’s Gully. It’s a good property,’ he added quickly. ‘Six hundred acres, part of it cleared, good water, a day’s ride from Goulburn.’

‘For how much?’

‘For twenty pounds, Mr Marks.’

Billy stared. ‘Six hundred acres down there is worth a lot more than that, even now. They get rain when no one else does.’

‘Twenty pounds and a Kaddish, Mr Marks. That’s what it is worth to Mrs Moses. And for the other Hebrews in the Goulburn area—well, perhaps you will say Kaddish again, Mr Marks.’

He met the man’s eyes honestly. ‘More like I won’t.’

‘Either way, the place is yours. For twenty pounds.’ He held out his hand. Numbly, Billy shook it.

He didn’t tell Annie about Mr Goldberg, and give himself away as a Hebrew. Annie knew he’d been a convict, knew he’d been a thief as well. But this…

They’d been missionaries, hadn’t they, the folks that rescued her? She’d told him her story. He knew she went to church each week with her employers, leaving the Sunday roast slowly cooking in the oven.

She knew he wasn’t a churchgoer, but she’d never asked what religion he was—or rather, what he wasn’t. And she’s not going to know, he thought, not till we’re married. Not till he had his Annie, safe.

He told her instead that Mrs Moses had lent him the balance of the property’s worth. Times were bad, and a widow woman didn’t want the bother of so many farms. Mrs Moses heard he was a steady fellow and she trusted him.

Annie stared. And then she grabbed his hand and jigged him round and round the kitchen table, till Mary the housemaid came to see what the noise was. The master and mistress had heard it, up the stairs.

Annie let Billy’s hands drop. She reached round and untied her apron. ‘You tell the master and mistress that I’ve quit,’ she said to Mary. ‘They can pay me what they owe me—fifteen shillings it is.’

‘But—but dinner…’

Annie’s smile was as bright as the moon. ‘I’ll cook their dinner and their breakfast too, till they get another cook. But I’m not doing it as a servant. I’ll cook for them but I’ll make as much noise as I want, me and my husband here.’ She grabbed Billy’s hand again. ‘Me and my William.’

She turned her smile on him. It could light up a room, he thought. Nay, it could light up a whole county. ‘My intended, Mr William Marks, of Markdale, in the county of Argyle.’

I should have put my best boots on, thought Billy. And his trousers without the patches on the knee. That was him now, he realised. Mr William Marks Esq. And Markdale, the perfect name for their new home, more distinguished than Slete’s Gully. No one would ever think that a Mr William Marks of Markdale could ever have been Billy Marks, the convict.

A new life and a new name. He lifted Annie’s hand again. A new wife, too.