Shepherd Read online

  Wait.

  Gyp yaps as my muscles tense. Slowly I straighten my knees and stare at the eastern horizon.

  Above the tree-line, in the distance, a faint wisp of smoke is drifting into the sky.

  The blacks carry their fire with ’em. A family once passed me in the forest and I smelled their smoke. There were a dozen at least—mostly women and children. They moved like shadows, falling silent when they saw my flock.

  I thought to myself: I’m dead. But when I ran, they didn’t chase me.

  Later I saw the smoke of distant fires. Though I counted six columns of smoke, I knew by then that many fires don’t always mean many blacks. According to Mr Barrett, the blacks will camp around a central fire and use other fire-pits to light up the bush and mislead their enemies. But this ploy has never confounded Mr Barrett’s men, who are always mounted and who move so quickly from fire to fire that the blacks don’t have time to escape. Mr Barrett is proud of that. He says he doesn’t want his farm burnt down by the blacks and their fires.

  I’m inclined to think that the blacks must fish with fire. I’ve found burnt faggots lying near waterways beside abandoned rods. There’s nothing like a flaming tar brand to bring trout to the surface of a brook; I learned that at my father’s knee. O’ course, the spear I used to fish with was short and pronged, not taller than a man and barbed at the point.

  But I was pleased to learn that the fish here behave much as the fish at home do. It’s been of great use to me, knowing this.

  You can get very tired of salt beef and fresh mutton.

  ‘Campfire!’

  Joe looks up at the sound of my voice. He and Rowdy are already eating their supper: mutton, pickled cabbage and damper hot from the ashes. The smell of baking fills the hut; Pedlar’s been trying to dig under the wall, and I have to push him aside as I enter.

  The door slams shut in his face.

  ‘Where?’ asks Joe, through a mouthful of cabbage.

  ‘Past the river. A long way.’

  He grunts. I drop the musket and pounce on my rations, which are sitting in a tin pannikin by the fire.

  ‘Did you find the ewe?’ he says.

  I shake my head. Joe mutters a curse.

  ‘Mebbe the blacks took yer sheep.’ Rowdy’s tone is lively. ‘Mebbe they’re eatin’ it now. Mebbe Tom saw their cookin’ fire.’

  Joe scowls. ‘She ain’t my sheep, she’s Barrett’s,’ he says fiercely. ‘And we could all be flogged if she ain’t found.’

  ‘Not me.’ I’ll take no blame for this. ‘I didn’t lose her.’

  Joe lashes out, but he’s not quick enough. I dodge the blow and Rowdy blocks the next one, for no reason I can see.

  ‘Now then, gentleman,’ he says. ‘Birds in their little nests…’

  ‘That bloody mongrel let it stray!’ Joe snarls. ‘’Tis the dog should be flogged!’ First he blamed me for his mistake; now he’s blaming Pedlar. But nobody’s going to touch that dog. Not if I can help it.

  ‘Could ye not say we ate the sheep ourselves?’ Rowdy says. ‘Better to run short o’ mutton than risk a floggin’…’

  Suddenly, in the distance, a wild dog howls. Another joins in, then another.

  Outside, Gyp and Pedlar respond.

  ‘Sounds like an Irish wake,’ says Rowdy.

  Joe stuffs the last of the mutton into his gob, grabs the gun and heads for the door, still chewing.

  ‘Goin’ to be a busy night, eh, Joe?’ Rowdy calls after him.

  Joe bangs the door shut behind him as he leaves. Rowdy waits for a few seconds before turning to me and saying, in a low voice, ‘Was it him did that to ye?’

  Again he touches his temple in the place where Carver struck me. I shake my head.

  ‘Who did then?’ he asks. ‘And don’t tell me ye fell, because I know ye didn’t.’

  He likes to pry, this one. A nosy man who talks too much. I’d be mad to trust him.

  My mouth is full of meat, so I can keep mum without giving offence.

  ‘’Twasn’t Gyp, I’m sure,’ he continues. ‘That dog’s a gentleman.’

  ‘She’s a bitch.’ Doddy-brain.

  ‘Aye, but I’ve known many a lass to be a gentleman,’ he replies breezily. He jumps to his feet and stretches. ‘So how d’ye pass the time of an evenin’? Sing a few songs, do ye? Dance a few reels?’

  Is he joking? He must be.

  ‘I know! Private theatricals!’

  He thinks he’s funny. There’s no cause to laugh at me and Joe just because we don’t talk much. Rowdy would be holding his tongue as well if Carver was here.

  ‘I’ll feed the dogs,’ I tell him, so he won’t ask me where I’m going. ‘You can wash the dishes.’

  He throws me a salute but doesn’t reply, thank God. My only fear is that he’ll talk in his sleep. At first I was thankful he’d come to free me from the watch-box at night. I wanted to sleep in my own bed again with no duty to disturb my dreams.

  Now I’m not so sure. If sleeping in the hut means sharing it with Rowdy, I may come to regret the watch-box.

  Carver might have been a black-hearted villain, but at least he didn’t talk all the time.

  My father trained me to silence the way he trained his dogs, with food and a cane. He trained me to be silent in the coverts, the hedgerows, the house, the court. Speech, he said, was poison. It scared the game, alerted the gamekeepers and betrayed your friends and family.

  Dogs don’t talk, and they’re no worse for it.

  The Bible says, ‘He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.’ Carver taught me the truth of this.

  Rowdy Cavanagh is talking his way to disaster.

  3

  MY EYES snap open. The dogs are barking. The roof above me is barely visible in the lamplight.

  Rowdy stirs in the next bed. Sitting up, I push off my sheepskin, pull on my boots and snatch up the burning lantern. Then I head for the door.

  Gyp sounds frightened; I don’t like this.

  Outside, the clearing is awash with moonlight. Black stumps rear out of the silver grass like rotting hulks on a calm sea. Joe stands near the watch-box, squinting down the barrel of his musket, sweeping it back and forth, back and forth.

  ‘Wild dogs?’ I call to him.

  ‘Dunno…’

  Gyp falls silent when I hiss at her but Pedlar keeps sniffing and whining at something on the ground—something that gleams in the glow of my lantern.

  I stoop to look.

  God ha’ mercy. ‘Joe!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is meat, here.’ Poisoned meat, no doubt. ‘Cut meat.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fresh mutton!’ Tossed from a distance. ‘Bait, Joe.’

  ‘Who’s there?’ Joe shouts. Then another voice makes me jump.

  ‘What’s goin’ on?’

  Rowdy has appeared in the doorway of the hut, looking sleepy and ruffled. I’m about to answer him when the dogs erupt into a clamour of snarls and yips, straining forward, hackles bristling.

  Someone—or something—emerges from behind a stump. Large and bent, hulking and misshapen, it limps out of the darkness towards us, silhouetted against the moonlit grass.

  A bear?

  ‘Jaysus!’ croaks Rowdy and ducks back inside.

  It’s not a bear, it’s a man—a man wearing a shaggy possum cloak. Soiled bandages trail along the ground behind one dragging leg. A makeshift patch covers his right eye. He’s plastered with muck and missing two fingers. His head is like a block of rough-hewn wood, all sharp angles and old scars.

  I recognise that broken nose. I recognise that mermaid tattoo.

  I recognise Dan Carver.

  ‘Stay back!’ Joe aims the gun at him; I can see it shaking. ‘Stay back, or I’ll blow yer brains out, whoever you are!’

  ‘Joe.’ Are you blind? ‘It’s Dan Carver.’

  Joe’s jaw drops.

  ‘Going to finish the job, eh, Joe?’
Carver’s voice puts ice in my guts. That low, level burr, calm and quiet even when he’s about to kill you—even when you’re about to kill him—that voice is like a pistol being cocked. ‘You should have done it right in the first place,’ he says.

  ‘The way you would have?’ I won’t be cowed.

  Carver’s great head turns in my direction, his one eye glinting.

  ‘I can’t hurt no one no more,’ he rumbles. ‘I swear I’ll stay mum if you do. Just give me food and I’ll leave. For good.’

  He advances one step.

  ‘Don’t move!’ Joe’s voice wobbles. So does the barrel of his gun. ‘Stay back, or I’ll shoot!’

  Suddenly Rowdy bursts from the hut, brandishing a hatchet. That’s when a shot rings out from the north.

  Joe crumples and drops his gun. Gyp begins to bark as my lantern falls. Another shot splinters the door-jamb next to Rowdy and he darts back inside.

  Two guns. I heard two guns out there.

  Joe’s writhing and crying on the ground, clutching his arm. Where’s his musket? Where’s the damn—?

  I spot it just as Carver lunges. His limp’s gone and I know I have to reach that gun first. He’s pulling a duelling pistol from beneath his cloak when Pedlar bites his leg and he roars with pain. I grab the musket. Joe lurches to his feet and staggers past me towards the hut.

  ‘Pedlar!’ Let go of Carver or he’ll shoot you. ‘Pedlar!’ I shriek. ‘Come! Ped—’

  Another gunshot. It’s too late. Pedlar’s on the ground, twitching and trembling, blood gushing from his head.

  Pedlar. Oh, Pedlar. My poor boy.

  ‘Bastard!’ The musket seems to fire itself long before I take aim. I miss, of course, and now Gyp’s trying to bring down Carver. ‘Gyp, come! Gyp!’

  She skitters back to me as another shot buries itself in the watch-box. Carver’s still loading his pistol.

  ‘Tom!’ Rowdy screams. He’s leaning out of the hut, pulling Joe inside. As Gyp slinks past them, Rowdy reaches out to grab me. He yanks me over the threshold and slams the door shut in Carver’s face. Then he wedges the bar into its brackets.

  Suddenly the door shakes from a heavy blow. Carver must be throwing himself against it.

  Joe’s on my bed, groaning. I can hardly see him through the tears in my eyes. Pedlar. Poor Pedlar.

  Gyp whines and nuzzles my knee.

  ‘Three guns!’ Rowdy’s voice is shrill. ‘They’ve got three guns!’

  He starts to pat the walls, feeling for chinks between the upright slabs. My own hands are shaking so much I can hardly reload. Tearing off the twist of paper was easy enough, but when I pour the powder into the priming pan, half of it spills onto the floor.

  ‘Ain’t no holes in them walls,’ Joe tells Rowdy, through gasps of pain. ‘We filled every one.’

  ‘That won’t keep him out, though, will it?’ Rowdy retorts with a glare. ‘Since he’s clearly got a bone to pick.’

  Damn. So he heard, then.

  ‘We had to kill him or he would’ve killed us,’ Joe blurts out. ‘Same way he killed Sam, and Walter—’

  ‘But ye didn’t kill him, did ye?’ Rowdy says. ‘In case ye hadn’t noticed.’ The words have barely left his mouth when another voice cuts in from outside the hut. Carver’s voice.

  ‘I told you, Joe—you should’ve finished the job.’

  Rowdy slaps his hand over his mouth, wide-eyed with horror because Carver’s heard everything.

  ‘You’re right about them walls,’ Carver continues. ‘Sealed up tight as a drum.’ After a pause he adds, ‘We’ll just have to find another way in.’

  We?

  God ha’ mercy. He must have joined a gang of bushrangers.

  Carver never threatened me. He didn’t need to. Instead he would talk about the things he’d already done.

  He talked about killing three men in the hold of the Mermaid on the voyage out. He’d smashed the skull of one man and left him at the foot of a gangway so the death would look like a tragic fall. He’d thrown another man overboard so swiftly and silently that no one had missed him for hours. The third man’s passing had been ruled natural when in truth Carver had smothered him because his coughing had kept the whole deck awake.

  Carver also bragged about killing a black boy in the bush. He said he did it to clean up the ‘vermin’ on Mr Barrett’s land. Said he shot the boy and stole his spear and woomerang, which he later used to kill Sam Jenkins and Walter Hogg. The blacks were blamed and a raid carried out, much to Carver’s amusement.

  He would hit me with the musket and the axe-handle. Once, because I wasn’t gutting a sheep as he wanted, he jabbed the tip of his knife into my chest where the ribs meet. Another time, when the damper wasn’t to his liking, he threw Joe onto the coals and held him there until his back was burnt.

  Carver never said he was going to kill me but I knew he would. He hated that the dogs favoured me over him. He hated that I never lost a sheep. He hated that I could read tracks.

  One afternoon he took me out to search for a stray sheep, but didn’t bring the dogs with us. I knew exactly what was coming. So did Joe.

  What else could we have done but save ourselves?

  Carver crashes against the door again and again, trying to break his way in. The whole hut trembles.

  ‘Here.’ I seize Rowdy’s bed and Rowdy dashes to help. Together we shove and drag it across the room until it’s rammed against the door.

  I wish it were heavier.

  The only light is from the embers in the fireplace. Our only weapons are the hatchet, the musket and the knives. The axe is outside by the woodpile. We have food. Ammunition. Two buckets of water…

  Suddenly Gyp erupts, barking wildly at a patch of roof high above her. There’s a knife-blade stabbing through the bark overhead.

  Someone must have climbed onto the woodpile.

  ‘You’re the one I’ll start with, Joe,’ Carver croons. He’s still behind the door. So who’s on top of the woodpile, chopping a hole in the roof with his knife?

  ‘I’ll string you up like a dead sheep,’ Carver adds quietly, ‘and lay yer guts open.’

  A shattering impact shakes the whole hut. God help us, he’s got the axe. He’s trying to hack the door to pieces.

  ‘Then I’ll leave you to the wild dogs,’ he finishes, ‘the way you left me.’

  Rowdy grabs a stool and shoves it under the widening hole in the roof as shreds of bark flutter down onto his head.

  I raise my loaded musket.

  ‘Listen, Carver—take them sheep,’ Joe rasps. He lurches to his feet, staggers across the room and plasters himself against the wall by the door. There’s a knife in his hand. The other arm hangs limp, dripping blood.

  I can’t worry about him, though. I have to watch the roof.

  ‘They’ll flog us,’ he croaks at Carver, ‘but they’ll not blame you. We’ll not say a word, I swear.’

  The door splinters beneath another blow of the axe. ‘D’you take me for a fool, Joe?’ Carver sounds amused.

  With a sudden flash of steel the knife above us vanishes. The muzzle of a carbine appears in its place. Rowdy’s stool is directly beneath it. He looks up, grabs the muzzle and tugs it sharply downwards. It discharges into the floor.

  A shocked Rowdy tumbles off his stool, still clutching the gun, and abruptly disarms Carver’s friend. Two empty hands grope around overhead. For an instant I have a clear view of their owner’s face framed in the ragged hole. His balding skull looks like a potato, brown and lumpy and crusted with dirt. His small eyes are set askew.

  He jerks back as I fire. There’s a sharp cry and a heavy thud.

  ‘For Chrissake!’ says Carver. The hacking blows stop; I can hear footsteps outside.

  ‘Did you hit him?’ Rowdy whispers, still cradling the captured carbine.

  ‘How should I know?’ I toss him a cartridge, then frantically tear at another with my teeth. Powder. Ball. Ramrod. I need to be quick.

  ‘You’re a damn fool,
Nobby.’ Carver’s voice is muffled. ‘Get up. Now.’

  So I didn’t hit his friend after all. Or perhaps I did, but only winged him.

  ‘We ain’t outgunned no more, Carver!’ Joe exclaims. He’s propped himself against Rowdy’s bed, looking pale and sweaty and sick. If Carver’s listening, he gives no sign of it.

  By this time my musket’s fully loaded. Rowdy is still fumbling with his own cartridge, so I reach for a dishcloth, toss it at Joe and say, ‘Bandage.’

  He needs to tie up that wound.

  ‘You do it,’ Rowdy murmurs. ‘Is there no rum we can give him?’

  Of course there’s no rum. Why would there be rum? But Rowdy’s right: Joe can’t tie a knot one-handed. I cross the room and snatch away the half-folded cloth, which I tighten around the wound in his arm. He grunts in pain; I’ve a notion the ball’s still in there.

  Gyp hasn’t stopped barking. When I hush her she whines, so I turn to see what’s amiss and—

  ‘Oh Christ,’ says Rowdy.

  Smoke is seeping through the roof.

  ‘Water! Quick!’ I head for the buckets but Rowdy gets there first. He picks one up and empties it onto the smouldering bark. There’s a hiss followed by a billowing cloud of steam and he falls back, coughing.

  Is Carver using the lantern I dropped out there? The eaves aren’t so high; you could set them alight without a ladder or even a woodpile. And then you’d just have to sit back and wait, until the people inside were forced to bolt…

  We can’t leave through the door now that Carver’s there with his axe and his pistol and his gang of bushrangers. There’s no window. As for the roof—yes, the roof is on fire. Over in one corner, beams are beginning to blacken. Tendrils of smoke ooze past rivulets of flame.

  ‘Look!’ I cry.

  Rowdy whips around, then grabs the second bucket and douses the fire above him. That’s the last of the water.

  We have to get out before we roast.

  ‘Cockeye!’ Beyond the door, Carver raises his voice. ‘You guard the rear.’

  God ha’ mercy, we’re surrounded.

  Gyp has stopped barking; she’s pressed up against me, her eyes on my face. Pedlar’s absence is like a stab-wound. Poor Pedlar.