The Roving Party (9 page)

D
ARKNESS OVERTOOK THE COMPANY AS THEY
emerged from the treeline onto a hunting grassland where a flock of cockatoos grazed like yard fowl. They gathered firewood and beneath a bare and tumorous blue gum made a camp, for there was no light to travel by. John Batman struck a fire from the firestick he carried and tended the flames. They roasted the strips of mutton they’d each carried and watched the stars uncloak. All knew a wretched night awaited when the dew stiffened into frost and the grassland began to white over. They had no billycan as it was with the other men, so they boiled water in their mugs and held the handles through their sleeves. John Batman chose a coal from the fire and lit his pipe. He blew smoke out his nostrils before handing it on to the boy, who took his turn and let the flavour fill his mouth. He blew through his nose as Batman had and gave the pipe to Black Bill.

What do you spose happened to old Horsehead? said the boy.

John Batman was sitting cross-legged like a Chinaman with his hat on one knee. He looked away upcountry. Not my concern no more.

Will you track him?

We’ll do better without his sorry bones about.

The night was bitter and all save John Batman wore their blankets around their shoulders. Batman was close to the fire and feeding it wood. Pigeon had his own pipe burning and with each draw the coal glow lit him; he smiled at mention of Horsehead.

Them Vandiemenland buggers cook him on fire and eat him I reckon. Eat him bones clean up.

He laughed and so did Crook.

They never eat men do they? asked the boy.

Couldnt say, said Batman.

What about them Parramattas?

Couldnt say.

Pigeon’s havin a lend, aint he?

Batman stared at him. He slurped his tea. Couldnt say.

The boy studied the Dharugs and his face darkened. He drew his legs up tight, out of their reach. No, it werent the blacks, he said. He’s just run off is all. He has designs on being a bushranger you know. A new Brady or some such.

That horsefucker aint worth a hair on Brady’s arse, said Batman. He spat into the fire.

I heard told you yourself lagged the outlaw, said the boy, up Launceston way.

And that’s the truth of it.

He must’ve bin a catch.

He was that.

Ow was it done?

How was it done, Batman murmured to himself. He held back the story as if he was reluctant but it was more likely an artifice of the telling, a telling he had honed over the many years since. He stoked the little fire. You dont take a man like Brady. More probably he relents. So it was with me.

Did you shoot him?

We had after him and we took a brace of guns but we never shot the man. There was some sharpshooters present too, I tell you. Fellows who could shoot the pizzle off a rutting buck if they so chose it. Men who knew guns like you know your own fingers or damn near.

The boy held his tin mug and the steam melted into the darkness around him. He watched Batman intently.

They was every breed of men, said Batman, but they shared a common enough trait and that was a fondness for money. The bounty stood at a hundred guineas you see. A sum intended to turn Brady’s own gang upon him and set every man in the district at his heels. There’s a good measure of cunning in our old Governor, a good measure. He reckoned rightly that such a sum would stir the appetites of them what’d called Brady their man and stir them it did, lad. Now there was parties like the one I had formed tracking hither
and thither after the man and his gang. He was doomed and every man alive knew it as a cold certainty that Brady would be hunted to a standstill, whereupon guns would be drawn and the death shot exchanged. What I intended was to be the man who fired it.

The boy watched him. But you never did, he said.

No I never. And more’s the pity for that man. It was a herd of cows give him away in the end. The great man what near raised the island into revolution. Aye. There was these cows come rumbling down a field close to our camp. I know cows, and cows wont do aught without incentive and I watched em run and figured upon their havin cause to do so. So I took up arms and left camp to have me a little look-see.

You went alone?

I did. Foolish as it might sound now, I held no fear of Brady. Some believed that he was better than the common thuggery. Somethin grander. Some believed he was Irish gentry cast out for his politics. They believed a good many things about him and none of them true. But when I at last laid my young eyes on the wretched sight Brady had become, I was confirmed in my opinion of him as a brave man but doomed. For never would you see a more pitiable creature than what he presented. I came upon him at some distance limping across a paddock with the aid of a crutch. There was no army and nothing of the rebellion about him. Just a single beggardly figure straggling over a landscape nearly Irish in its greenery.

I almost broke off right there. Plenty of people since said I should have. John Wedge allowed that he was the nearest we’d ever have to a Red MacGregor and as such deserved his peace. But I couldnt come at that when I was younger. I supposed a man should suffer for his sins. Even a great man. There was also the matter of a hundred guineas weighing on me thinking. I am since changed in my opinions though. I followed him onwards and he staggered into a bit of bush and after a time I crossed the field in pursuit and it wasnt far till I caught him. Holed up snug under a bush he was. Muddier than a miner. I showed my gun and he raised his likewise.

By now a deep cold had come down and the stars gleamed like minerals. Batman gazed up at the sky a moment to study those brilliant stones before he continued.

I held my firearm and I looked him dead in the eye. We stood off a good minute. Then Brady asks me who the hell I was. And I says John Batman at your service. He is in pain somethin terrible. He asks if I’m a military man. I says to him, I’m not a soldier—now surrender for there is no chance for you.

Batman swirled the dregs of tea then drained them on the grass and slipped the mug into his pocket. But I know this much. I ought to have shot the bastard. When he was dropped his neck held they say. He danced on the gibbet like he was back a-courting in County Kildare. There aint a man in history who deserves to die like that. I ought to have shot him and had done with it.

The judges, the parsonry, the public servants, they never get their hands dirty with men’s blood and they are the worse for it. There is a sly cruelty to a fellow who sends others to their death while he himself has no knowledge of it. But I’d say one minute beside a dying man with all his flailing and begging would set their thinking to rights.

The boy shivered inside his blanket. Brady had it coming, he said.

Batman leaned in and the underside of his jaw was lit up ghoulishly by the fire. We all of us have it coming, lad.

Bits of mutton in the flames smoked in a dark crescent. The boy watched him still. What about that witch? Does he?

The witch, said Batman. He nodded slowly.

Does he?

I will tell you somethin about him. There isnt a particle of manhood about that savage. Not more than a speck. His weapons of choice are a treachery patiently nursed and some knowledge of hides and snugs. He deserves a dog’s death and by God he will get it.

After the talking was done Black Bill rose, tea in hand, and melted into the night to relieve himself on the bushes. When he returned the men had lain down for sleep and Bill did likewise, but not before building the fire up against the weather. Only the boy remained awake. He watched Bill settle once more and drag his blanket around his shoulders. The flames twitched and danced between them.

We aint runnin foul of the law ourselves are we? said the boy. I mean, Batman up and shot that black bugger.

Black Bill tugged his hat down over his eyes. He eased back against the meat of the blue gum. You cant murder a black, he said, any more than you can murder a cat.

The boy drew breath to speak but in the end had nothing more to say. The fire popped, the only sound to mar the limitless dark. He pressed two fingers against his cheek and brought them to his mouth and licked and remembered the taste of apples.

T
HE SUN THREW A WEAK LIGHT
around the mountain and John Batman walked the perimeter of their little camp looking upcountry for smoke from the signal fire. The frost rasped under his boots as he strode, leaving prints the colour of grass. The sharings of damper were miserly small and they ate quickly. They pissed on the fire and then Batman led them over the plain where feet both booted and bare grew numb as their progress was written upon the hoarfrost. They retraced their own run through the forest and up the slope where the going was steepest and all that morning the sun was merely a rumour in the sky. By afternoon it revolved around the mountainside and shone upon the backs of the company. At a stream they lay in the slick litter and drank and refilled their canteens and Pigeon indicated a gap in the canopy where smoke as thin as a feather floated against the blue day and marked the locality of the assigned men. They pressed on, taking a bearing through the brush that gave easier passage, and the miles ran by.

Within a few hours they had found the camp. The assignees and Gould seated around the signal fire stood and brought their weapons up. They looked badly done with, dark under the eyes and unwashed. Jimmy Gumm had the native boy on his hip and he approached the group with the little boy clinging to his shirt and sucking his wet finger. Baxter and Gould looked upon John Batman with much the same satisfaction, as they’d supposed the company murdered and themselves lost on the mountain. They grinned and walked towards him. The child’s mother was roped beside the fire and Taralta lay nearby, his eyes closed, his breath shallow. They had wrapped his wounds and fed him although quite why they could not say.

Some sort of sled’s what’s needed, said Gumm. To drag him on.

Batman didn’t respond. Instead he walked away from the fire and waved at his men to follow him. They formed up in a rough curve, those bleakfaced men, and stood with their arms folded on their chests. Batman looked them each in the eye as if he was no part of that group but was indeed its opposition. His massive gun was longwise on his back, the leather strap and buckle on his chest in the manner of a military cross-belt, and he unslung that fearsome piece and held it out before him. The men waited in silence.

Who will it be then?

They glanced at one another.

The child was wailing, a thin, carrying sound. John Batman held his weapon. They shifted under his burdensome gaze and scratched their balls until he raised his voice again.

I aint doin it, he said.

But no one stepped forward. They made a study of the ground and would not raise their eyes.

And so it was that Black Bill grabbed the doublebarrel gun from Batman’s hand and he checked the priming and walked off towards the campfire. They watched him go and they one and all shook their heads. Batman called them onwards with a motion of the arm, so they hefted their hide knapsacks and affixed their weapons across their backs and then they followed him. Someone lifted the native girl to her feet and shoved her along and her child rode on Gumm’s broad and lashscarred shoulders. Soon they were gone altogether. Black Bill removed his hat. He worked back the heavy cocks of both barrels and they settled with a dull clunk. Taralta clutched at his swaddled chest and looked Bill in the eyes, as wordless as ground stone. Bill brought up the massive gun and steadied the barrels across his forearm as his broken fingers could not take the weight. The sight of those octagonal bores levelled on him caused the lawman to huddle down behind his hands and cry out, and Bill steadied the gun but there was no clear shot he might take. He waited.

See now, he said. Move your hands.

The lawman crabbed away over the dirt, still with his arms
upraised, and Bill followed him and kicked him in the bandaged ribs and kicked at his arms.

menenger, Bill said, menenger.

The lawman curled up more tightly. Bill brought the heel of his boot to bear on the wounded man but he kicked in vain while Taralta folded his arms ever tighter around his head.

Black Bill lowered the gun. Wattlebirds made their yac-a-yac coughs in the bush behind and he gazed at the blue hills to the south and the snow clouds forming above them. When Bill looked again at the lawman he was watching through his hands, dirt and ash stuck in the cords of his ochred hair. Bill brought the gun up, balanced it across his arm again and tucked the butt into his shoulder. Then he fired into the lawman’s head.

The almighty concussion rattled the wind in his chest and the gun bucked from his grip and fell. He turned away, holding his shoulder. Blood had spattered his face, his arms, the front of his shirt. For a time he would not look at the body of the lawman where it lay near the fire. He rubbed at the bruising on his shoulder; watched storms amass around the southern peaks. After a while he turned to survey the slaughter he had wrought.

One of the lawman’s arms was gone at the elbow and the teeth seated in the jawbone could be seen through the cheek. There was flesh blown every place. He picked up the Manton gun. The locks were soiled and he fingered out the grime, and
then with the corner of his coat cleaned the pan and blew into the latchworks. He brought the weapon up to eye level and peered along its sights for barrel warps or any misalignment then, content, slung the leather on his shoulder. Without a rearward glance he stalked off, his hat replaced, his boots slipping in the blood. Smoke from the fire blew around him in a snarl raised on the wind and dispersed again on the same.

Black Bill made haste after the roving party. He pushed onwards through clumps of tree ferns and followed the track taken by the company down the mountainside. They were no more than ten minutes ahead but he had neither sight nor sound of them. He paused to study the scuffings of bandaged feet and the direction they told before moving on.

He was picking a careful path down an embankment strewn with debris when he heard it. He stopped and looked back at the mountain rising behind him and the silver snow it wore crownlike. The bush of black wattle and blossoming gum was broken only by the path he was scouting. He brought Batman’s gun around. Off in the forest the crashing of some nameless thing sounded, at first indistinct but ever less so. It may have been wallaby or emu but as he listened, as he made that din for what it was, he was gripped in a moment of panic.

He bolted down the slope, finding a position in the
undergrowth where he might hide, and he tugged the branches around himself and cast up the debris of the forest floor across his legs to obscure his clothing. In that blind he allowed himself only the smallest gap to see up the hillside as he settled the gun under his chin and concealed it too with leaves. He slowed his breathing, stilling every movement of his limbs. By the time he was embedded, the dark shapes of spearsmen were beginning to show among the yellow gums that stood mute and immovable as the men streamed around them. They dipped behind a fallen tree and vaulted its trunk and their great spears rose tall overhead. Black Bill had them along his barrel as his heart beat a lively rhythm against the earth but he held off taking his shot. They were driving before them a familiar figure, a baldheaded fellow crazed with horror, glancing behind and clawing his way through the underscrub. The warriors made war cries and hammered their waddies against the trees, setting the branches a-shudder and sending their spears sibilating between the gums. Bill watched one haft arc and bury in the earth beside Horsehead, who went down on one knee but rose and fought onwards towards the spot where Bill was concealed. Among the war party was Manalargena. He waved his blackwood waddy above his head and the clay caking in his beard shook as he hurtled through the forest. He was painted up for war in grey ash and red ochre. Behind him the terrible tribe howled in one voice as they followed their quarry.

In those few seconds Black Bill considered letting the
clansmen simply pass by. He was well hidden. No good would come of helping Horsehead. But the old crook was nearly spent and he loped along with the gait of a river troll, his wispy hair awry above his haggard face, his clothes torn and grime on his skin. As Bill watched, a ten-foot spear buried half its length into a tree fern just shy of Horsehead and he cried out to God for help. Instead the task fell upon Bill. He cursed himself for a fool. Then he rose out of the brush bearing the gun on his hip and fired into the war party. Immediately they dropped and one screamed out in pain and they scrambled a retreat up the hillside, keeping low behind the gums and leaving the distressed fellow where he lay. Only Manalargena remained standing and he did not turn or hide but rather he stared across that separation of forest at the Vandemonian. He raised aloft his waddy and called out, nina krakapaka laykara.

The Vandemonian might have fired the second barrel but he would have left himself exposed without a charge. The headman hooted and wailed.

Shoot the bastards. Horsehead was crouched behind a broken stump. Shoot shoot shoot, he said.

But Black Bill had gone running into the scrub hunched over and Horsehead now bolted after him, stumbled and righted himself, and they put in some yards before the Plindermairhemener lobbed their waddies end over end through the trees. Those cudgels whoomping in slow rotations battered the gums overhead and gouged out huge wounds in
the hardwood. There was more cover down the slope, thickets of heath, of flowering musk, and as they struck out towards it the headman’s cries drowned in the clamour of wind.

They fought them running down the face of the mountain all that long day. They found cover behind crowds of ferns and mossy rocks while Bill repacked and fired at the noiseless black shapes flitting between various concealments. Noon saw them stop at a water trickle and they took turns lapping at the stones as the other kept watch. Bill refilled his canteen. Then they moved on once more but that small halt gave the clansmen back some ground and they quickly drew within range of a good throw. A spear curved over Bill’s hat and fell without a sound in front of him, the haft quivering in the earth. He frowned and broke the thing over his knee but more followed the first and soon the trees were full of their clatter. He picked up his pace and Horsehead stayed with him. The Plindermairhemener retrieved their spears as they ran and threw them again and they neither spoke nor cried out but maintained the silence of hunters.

In the afternoon the two marked men crouched amid the ruins of a dried river bed and studied the clansmen where they held positions up the slope in the dogwood. Black Bill opened
the neck of his shot bag and felt at the contents. Perhaps ball enough for one barrel. He retied the string and stuffed the sack inside his drum then looked around at Horsehead.

You hear that? he said.

The old cur nodded. I hear it. He jibbered the same stuff at me all night.

Manalargena was calling to Bill across the distance between the parties. He called him plague dog and speculated on the nature of the white sickness Bill had so plainly contracted. He insisted that Bill would be killed as mercifully as any diseased animal if he came forth in surrender and would not suffer the punitive rituals of spearing or wounding reserved for transgressors of the law. Bill listened and waited and when the headman had finished his oratory he stood from the cover and fired. The men dropped away before the spout of flame. All except the headman. Bill stood with the gun against his shoulder assessing the position he held and then he went low and fast through the brush and Horsehead went after him. They ran for where the black wattle grew broad and would shelter them from sight as the clansmen renewed their cries of war.