Tommo & Hawk (57 page)

'What? What about Ikey? What's all this got to do with him?'

'To my mind, everything!' I lean forward across the table. 'Don't you see, Ikey lies at the heart of our troubles!'

'Hawk, you're talkin' nonsense! What's you mean, Ikey's the reason for our problems? He's our father! Without Ikey's voice in me head, I'd never have come out o' the wilderness!'

'Without Ikey, you'd probably never have been taken there in the first place, Tommo!'

Maggie rises from her chair and picks up her bowl of stew. 'If you two are gunna fight I'm goin' into the kitchen,' she says, marching off.

We ignore her and I continue. 'Tommo, it all started with Ikey's greed over what was in the safe at Whitechapel - not wanting to share his half with Hannah and his children.'

'What the hell is you talkin' about, Hawk? What safe?'

In my excitement I've forgotten that Tommo knows nothing of the safe full of stolen treasure, which Ikey and Hannah had left buried under the pantry floor of their Whitechapel house. I'd also forgotten my oath of secrecy to Mary, though I suddenly recall her every sharp word as if it were yesterday. 'Hawk, you'll not talk to no one about the money, Ikey's money, ever, you understand? Not even to Tommo, you hear!'

I look up at Tommo. He has to know. My loyalty to my twin is greater than to Mary. And so I tell him the whole story of how Mama and I conspired to win Ikey's fortune for ourselves. How, while in England to learn about hop-growing, I found the safe and secretly emptied it of its contents, stealing the fortune from under Hannah and David's nose, and leaving only a ring and a note which said: Remember, always leave a little salt on the bread.

Tommo bursts out laughing, 'That were clever to use Ikey's favourite saying!'

I recall how David had fallen defeated to his knees, clutching the ring in his fist.

'Whatever can it mean? We are done for! My family is destroyed!' he had wailed. 'Ikey Solomon has beaten us all!'

'But it was Mary and I who'd beaten Hannah and David and the rest of Ikey's family. It was Mary's revenge for our kidnapping,' I confide to my astonished twin.

'Why'd ya never tell me this before?' he asks.

'Tommo, forgive me, but Mama made me swear I wouldn't tell you. When you came back from the wilderness and,' I pause, 'all was, well, not right between you two, she felt she could not trust you with the secret of Ikey's money, and so she asked that I keep it a secret. I didn't want to, but in the end I agreed. I'm sorry, Tommo.'

'Never mind, Hawk. You done the right thing. You didn't know how I'd be.' He smiles. 'I didn't know how I'd be meself. How rich is Mary?'

'Very!'

'All from Ikey's safe?'

'No, not all. She's done well for herself, as you know. But still the larger portion by far is Ikey's money from the safe. So now you know what happened, Tommo. It was greed that led to our kidnapping.'

I swallow. 'The same greed that made Mary take all of Ikey's money and then throw us out of our own home. While David Solomon will never know what truly happened to Ikey and Hannah's fortune, I fear he may have concluded that Mary now has all his parents' hidden wealth. That's still the same greed working to destroy us. Even Mr Sparrow putting in the sting is more of Ikey's greed at work - Ikey, who taught him all he knows!

'It's like a curse working over and over again, from which we must somehow escape.'

I want desperately for my brother to understand, but Tommo isn't listening. 'You sure us bein' kidnapped were David and Hannah's work?' he asks abruptly.

'I can't prove it, but who else would do such a thing? Mama wasn't rich at the time, and there was no cause for anyone else to kidnap us.'

'But what happened to us, Hawk? How were we parted? Can you remember? I can't. I've tried a thousand times! I don't have no memory of what happened after we was took on the mountain.'

'I didn't either - at least not until I got my voice back,' I say to him. 'Since then it seems to have slowly come back to me, bit by bit, like pieces in a child's kaleidoscope. Of course, I don't know what happened to you after the wild man took me away into the mountains.'

Tommo leans forward across the table. 'Tell me, Hawk.' His voice is urgent and his eyes bright with hope. 'Maybe I'll get better if you tell me!'

I close my eyes and slowly draw back the past. Then I begin to tell my sorry tale.

*

'We were climbing down the mountain where we'd been to see the snowline when four men grabbed us. They blindfolded and gagged us, and stuffed us into hessian bags, after binding our feet and hands. Then they lifted us onto some sort of stretcher.

'They must have struck out across the mountains to a road where they had a cart waiting. All I remember is that when they take us out of the bags, we're both crying. They take off my gag and give me some water and a crust of bread. Then we're both put back into our separate bags and onto a horse cart. I must have slept some, because the next thing I remember is hearing a voice shout, "Stand to!" and the cart coming to a halt. Then there are four rapid shots and a man screaming and crying out for mercy. Then another shot, then silence.

'Soon enough a hand opens the bag and I'm pulled out by my hair. When the gag and blindfold are taken off, I can't see anything for a while. Gradually I make out a man holding me. Beside the cart lie three of our captors dead, and another further away a bit. All look like they are sleeping - all except one who lies on his back with his arms and legs sprawled and blood coming out his mouth. Already, there are ants around him. I begin to cry again and look about for you, but you're still hidden in your sack and I can't reach you. Then the man who shot them comes over and hits me on the side of my head. "Nigger!" he spits. Just the one word. "Nigger!"

'He is dressed entirely in kangaroo and possum skins but for a trooper's high-topped white cap, and he is filthy. His beard falls almost to his waist and his hair is wild and knotted on his shoulders. What can be seen of his face is dark with dirt, the skin weathered and criss-crossed with scars. His nose is flattened like a pig's snout and from it a stream of yellow snot trails down to broken and lopsided lips. His tongue constantly darts out, licking the snot. He is barefoot too, with the soles of his feet cracked and the long toenails all broken.'

'A wild man,' Tommo says, and I nod.

'Then I realise there is another man, mounted on his horse. He is dressed in skins and ragged breeches and boots, ancient and cracked. He too has a ragged beard and his dirty face is deep-burned to a copper colour.'

'Was he bald?' Tommo questions me.

'I think not...' I think hard for a moment. 'No, he wore a hat, a bushman's hat. I remember, he took it off to hide whatever it was he'd taken from the dead men's pockets in it. He had dark hair and a deep scar across his left eyebrow, running into his hairline.'

'Well, it weren't Sam Slit,' Tommo says. 'Sam were bald and no scar.'

'It's most likely this bastard sold you to Slit, because he takes the cart and horses and you. You are still wriggling in your bag when the wild man takes me away.

'The wild man puts a rope about my neck and ties me behind his horse. I can't walk because my ankles have been tied and have lost all circulation. So he drags me along by my neck, me in the dirt and him not looking back. I'm screaming your name, blubbing and choking from the noose about my neck, stones cutting into me. I just want to get back to you.'

It is the first time I've spoken aloud about what befell us and now I begin to weep. Tommo reaches out and puts his hand on my shoulder. 'Hawk,' he says. 'Oh Hawk!' Then I see he too is weeping.

I am grateful it is Sunday night and well past dinner-time by now, so that the chophouse is empty. Tommo and I sit and have a good old cry over the past. I can hear the clatter of dishes and laughter in the kitchen as Maggie makes some joke. After a while, we're all right again.

'Can you remember the rest, when Mary come to find you?' Tommo asks, once our tears have dried.

I nod. This is the darkest of my memories and has only returned to me recently.

'Can you tell me?' Tommo gazes at me. 'Or don't you want to?'

'I do remember, and I will tell you,' I say gently. 'But first, you. Do you not remember anything of what happened when we were parted?'

'There must be something. Something what I remembers.' Tommo gives a bitter little laugh. 'Though I dunno why I want to. It were all so bloody awful.' He seems to be thinking and he looks up to the ceiling as he speaks, his blue eyes glistening with tears again, his voice unsteady.

'I remember going up the mountain, you and me, the first snow, racing up to the snowline.' Tommo smiles through his tears. 'Me winning, 'cause I were smaller and faster and you a bit clumsy on the rock and shale. Then coming down again, to return to Strickland Falls, to Mama.' Tommo stares straight at me for a moment, his expression so very sad, like a little boy who doesn't understand what he's done wrong.

'And then Slit. Slit and the sweet, sticky smell of the whisky still and the wilderness all about, stretching forever, darker and darker. It be as though I blinked me eyes, and everything changed. One moment I were playing with you on the mountain and the next I were with Slit in the wilderness - Slit beating the daylights out o' me most days!'

'Tommo, poor Tommo, let's not speak of it any more,' I say, trying to comfort him. 'I'll tell you how Mary found me some other time, eh?'

'No, tell me now,' Tommo presses me. 'That silver scar 'round your neck, it haunts me. I needs to know!'

I close my eyes tightly and feel warm tears run down my cheeks. 'Every day the wild man led me behind his horse through the high mountains with the rough rope pulling tight around my neck, so that it bled and festered constantly. This went on for months until my neck was worn almost through. At night he'd tie me up, beat me, the rope still around my neck tied to a tree. I couldn't move away from his blows or I would choke myself. I hoped I would die. He was a monster worse than any in the books Mama read to us. Finally I lost my voice.'

Tommo is in tears again. 'I could feel it!' he sobs. 'In the wilderness with Slit, I could feel your pain, I swear it! When did you lose your voice?'

'Towards the end, just before Mama came. I don't know, five months, maybe a bit more. Why, Tommo?'

'I remember how Slit beat me for weeks 'cause I couldn't answer him. Me throat were closed up, shut tight. I knew I could talk, but then again I couldn't. It were our twinship, I s'pose.'

We both pause. 'But how did Mary rescue you?' Tommo urges.

'Well, we're climbing up a mountain one day - it's early morning and very cold. I was never warm in all that time, not once. I don't know where we're going, but the wild man keeps stopping and looking up at the track, a narrow path which seems to me all stones. He's sniffing, testing the air, his tongue darting out like he's tasting it. He sucks his finger and holds it in the air above his head, testing the wind. Then up we go, climbing the mountain. Suddenly he stops and turns his horse and we descend into a small box canyon.

'And then I see Mary. She is sitting up holding a blanket to her neck, and I realise that she has seen the monster and is filled with terror. Next she spies me, standing behind the horse with the rope around my neck.

'"Hawk!" she screams.

'But I've got no voice and cannot answer her. I just stand trembling in the bitter, cold morning. I raise my hands to confirm it is me, to tell her that I've heard her. I speak to her in the sign language that Ikey's taught us, and which Mary knows also.

"Mama!" I say.

'"Hawk! Mama's come!" she screams. Then she looks up at the monster. "He's my boy, my precious boy, give me him!"

'The monster jerks at the rope so that I am thrown to my knees. Loosening the rope from the saddle, he drags me to a rock and ties me to it. And then he drives his first into my face and I fall to the ground.

'Mama is still yelling at him, "You bastard! You fucking bastard!"

'I look up in my daze to see the monster, his tongue darting in and out and licking at his snot, ties his horse to another boulder and walks towards Mama. He's got her trapped, blocking her escape. He throws her to the ground and leaps on top of her, pulling his breeches down. He's grunting and puffing and tearing at her clothes and skirt, one hand around her throat. Then I hear the shot, and three more, and the wild man slumps down over Mama, vomiting and shitting himself. She's shot him.

'Mary is covered in guts, shit, blood and vomit but she pushes him aside, drops her pistol and comes running towards me, arms outstretched. She grabs me and howls like some primitive creature. Then she weeps and weeps, and I with her.'

I am exhausted at this telling and Tommo is once again reduced to sobs. 'Tommo,' I say, clasping my hand to his shoulder, 'Mama found me, but she never gave up looking for you. Not one day passed that she didn't try to find you! She offered a king's ransom if anyone should report your whereabouts. She put your likeness and description on the back label of every bottle of Tomahawk beer she sold. She questioned me for years about what happened and where you might be - all the time you were away.

'"Think, Hawk!"  She'd shake me  by the shoulders. "Think, darling! The man what took Tommo, what did he look like? Can you remember anything, darling, the smallest thing?" But of course I couldn't. Not then.'

I grip Tommo's shoulder hard. 'It's all so clear now. I can see him, the man with a scar across his eyebrow. The scar went deep into his hairline, as if it had been done with an axe. Black eyes, dead like lumps of coal, another scar across his mouth, intersecting his bottom lip. That's who took you.'

'It weren't Slit,' Tommo mutters, and stares into the distance for a long time. 'So why must we get Ikey out of our souls?' he asks at last.

'Don't you see? Ikey's greed is at the root of all this misery. It wasn't his fault - he wasn't evil. But life was hard and that's how he survived. He had to be greedy just to live. That greed is still with us, it haunts us, Tommo!'