Absolution Creek (21 page)

Scrubber stretched out on his back, his spine finally locating a less painful position. He wondered if the same stars were above him now as those at that first meeting with Matt some forty years ago. Back then he’d wondered at the contrast of so many stars sprinkled close to the dark of heaven. Time made a man appreciate the night sky. Life didn’t have so many bright spots in it as you hoped for. He wormed across the puckered ground, manoeuvring the tobacco pouch beneath him. It was a fine thing this remembering, if it wasn’t tinged with regret. He wondered if Cora Hamilton ever gazed at the stars, if she thought about the old days. Well, he’d know soon enough.

Scrubber guessed everybody wanted the same things. All those years ago as he lay by the spitting fire with Matt’s saddle blanket under his head, anything had seemed possible: food, the chance of a job and the world spinning above. The offer of the saddle blanket had sealed his relationship with Matt Hamilton. An act of good will that stuck in Scrubber’s mind. If things were different they’d all be here now: him, Matt Hamilton and Jack Manning.

But, of course, that was never going to happen – not with a thief among friends.

Chapter 16

T
he billow of bulldust hung low and heavy, inescapable. Scrubber would have ridden past the drovers were it not for the young fella hanging at the rear like a willie wagtail trying to claim his territory, all puffed chest and attitude.

‘Three hundred head walking in a tight circuit of two hundred mile,’ he told Scrubber, a cigarette stuck to his lip. ‘The owner’s giving his paddocks a spell after recent rain. Figured on a month’s destocking. No one told the old man that with the cold weather not much would be growing in the mob’s absence.’

‘That so,’ Scrubber croaked, keeping his throat covered. The boy was dressed for the part: jeans, boots, pocketknife, flapping oilskin, newish hat. Bit stiff in the saddle though – left hand dangling as if he didn’t know quite what to do with it. Injury, he reckoned. A splatter of blood stained the lad’s thigh; something had recently had its throat cut.

The youth spat his smoke into dry grass. ‘Where you going?’

‘West.’ Scrubber watched the cigarette butt flare in the leaf litter. He clucked his girls on.

The lad was quick to stay abreast, spurring a flighty gelding with a wily eye. ‘You ever been droving? You need a station hand?’

‘Never been that desperate and no.’ Scrubber clicked his fingers at Dog to keep up.

‘There’s the camp.’ The boy pointed.

Scrubber didn’t think two trees and a cattle truck dressed roughly with a tarp was a mirage.

‘And we’ve got fresh meat if you’re partial.’

Scrubber scratched his stubbly cheek. Was the Pope Catholic? ‘Have you now?’

He watered his horses while the three drovers yarded the mob. They pegged a square out with posts and wire, packing the cattle in good and tight. Scrubber contributed by gathering a bit of wood to keep the fire going, dragging a log up to lean against, and sitting his belongings close to where he intended to sleep, right by the fire. It was a rough camp: two scribbly gums with a rope stretched between them to tether the horses, a patch of dirt, a truck, and a half dozen dogs scrabbling over something dead through an adjoining fence. Still, a man could put up with plenty when it came to a free meal cooked by another.

The drovers returned and introductions were done intermittently as the men took turns to splash water on their faces from a bucket. They threw handfuls of the stuff sparingly about their necks. They were lean, roughish types with the names of Tyrell, Cummins and Jarrod. Scrubber could still smell them after their wash, which was saying something. He used one of Veronica’s old tea towels dampened with water to clean himself up a bit, running his fingers through his best feature: his snow-white hair.

Cummins appeared from the rear of the truck, walking gingerly down the ramp, a leg of mutton dripping blood over his dusty shirt.

‘Fresh kill,’ he announced, sitting the leg on a tin plate and cutting the flesh into steak-like wedges. With the incisions made, he stabbed the knife in the dirt and then drove a small tommyhawk into each cut mark, splintering bone and buckling the plate. He threw the hunks of meat into a skillet, and chucked the ruined plate over his shoulder.

Tyrell roughly peeled potatoes, whistling while he worked. Two loaves of bread and half-clean plates were handed around. Not a bad camp, Scrubber decided. It could be real tasty.

The meat spat and hissed, the potatoes burned slowly, and tea was made bitter strong. The drovers were friendly enough, Scrubber thought, not that Dog agreed. He growled low and often, occasionally standing to bark at the pack of dogs through the fence. Scrubber pushed him down with his hand. ‘They’re not your type, mate.’

‘Good dog?’ Tyrell asked, as he speared a piece of barely cooked meat with a fork and sat it in between two pieces of dry bread. ‘Always was partial to long-haired collies.’

‘Biter,’ Scrubber supplied. ‘Not me – anyone else.’

Dog growled.

‘He’s hungry.’ Scrubber nodded at the skillet.

Reluctantly Tyrell handed Dog a bit of bread and mutton. The mutt snaffled it up. Scrubber made a show of taking his scarf off, stretched his neck sideways, and tapped at the bit of rubber piping wedged in the hollow. Three pairs of riding boots scratched in the dirt. Jarrod passed him a slice of the meat and two bits of bread, but wasn’t so talkative any more. Eventually, when the silence had got past the comfortable stage, they all asked a question: where he came from, where he was going, about the hole in his throat.

‘Forceps delivery,’ Scrubber explained, his thumb covering the hole as he spoke. ‘Buggered up my vocal chords.’ As expected no one queried him. Cummins offered him a splash of rum, but cautiously, like he didn’t want to get too close.

‘You know anyone in need of a station hand in a month or so?’ asked Jarrod, the young lad he’d met first. ‘I’m only here on account of an accident.’ Pulling roughly at his shirt he revealed a knobbly collarbone. ‘The boss put my horse down without asking – fired me because I couldn’t work.’

With the lad’s shoulder exposed, Scrubber caught sight of a rugged red line and jutting bone. ‘There’s always a cocky that enjoys belittling another.’

‘Any advice?’

‘Aye, lad. Sue ’em,’ Scrubber counselled, saving his speech to concentrate on fresh mutton and potatoes. In his experience every effective team needed a thief and a whinger. Scrubber figured Jarrod fitted the mould. ‘You get the tucker?’ Scrubber asked, forcing a particularly tough piece of flesh down his gullet.

Jarrod chose not to answer and ran greasy fingers through his hair.

‘Slaughter it yourself?’ Scrubber persisted. He prided himself on judging a person. ‘Takes a bit to blood a sheep properly, especially if you eat it fresh.’

‘I know how to stick something if I have to.’

Scrubber felt the boy’s eyes drift to the pouch at his waist. ‘I’m sure you do.’

None of the drovers slept by the fire. They packed themselves into the back of the truck, tossing out gear to make space: a suitcase, a trunk, jerry cans of fuel, rope, rifle and spare supplies. Scrubber weighed up if he needed any of it, but he was used to travelling light and better for it. His bones were aching tonight and a bit of extra heat never went astray, so he hollowed the dirt out a little closer to the fire, resting his rifle nearby, and burrowed his cheek into the soil, his nose inches from Dog’s warm breath. His horses stayed close by, sensing his distrust, eating the meagre rations by the road. Tomorrow he’d make it up to them: put their stomachs before his own. A man couldn’t go very far without them, after all.

When the hand reached for the pouch by his waist Dog growled in warning. Scrubber straddled the youth in a dusty flurry of kicks. A blade glinted in the dwindling firelight.

‘I reckoned you’d come for me,’ Scrubber growled in a rush of indistinct words. A dribble of moisture seeped from the hole in his neck. ‘You feeling particularly tempted to meet your maker tonight, Jarrod? Cause it don’t mean nothing to me, killing a man.’ He gave an unintended wheeze. ‘Watching ’em die . . .’ A drip of neck fluid splattered the boy’s cheek. ‘Seeing his blood.’

Jarrod tried to move, but was pinned by bony knees and a razor-sharp elbow. Dog’s nosed pressed tight and hot into his cheek. ‘You’re mad,’ he gasped.

Scrubber sheathed the knife. ‘Maybe I am. I’ve got crimes attended to that no confession could ever cleanse, and no sense of respect towards another man’s life. What you got apart from youth and attitude?’

Jarrod shook his head. ‘Get off me.’

Scrubber lifted a gnarled fist. ‘Never show the enemy your weak spot,’ he said and cracked it into the boy’s collarbone. The lad howled like a girl.

‘Well, what do you think of that?’ Scrubber said to the pouch, patting it as he resettled himself. ‘Haven’t lost my touch.’

Jarrod scrambled backwards and looked from Scrubber to the pouch. ‘You’re mad.’

Scrubber pushed his neck scarf about his throat. ‘Amen.’

The altercation put Scrubber out of sorts for a couple of days. By the time he made camp next to a set of ruined sheep yards he’d already been on Purcell land for a day. He’d know it anywhere: the engulfing flatness of it, the parched ground, and the sense of accomplishment that still wavered across the now tree-covered paddocks. The government had bought all of Waverly Station for a poor price – a mandatory resumption of criminal proportions couched in a great environmental quest to save some lizard that no one ever saw. Now the land was ruined, wasted, a sorry mix of feral pigs, kangaroos and wild horses. Natural pasture no longer existed. Highly paid stupidity, and the men in suits wondered why folks did their best to cheat paying taxes.

Still, it was good to be back. That first day he’d ridden in with Matt and Evans all those years ago, with a week of half-decent food down his gullet and one of Matt’s shirts on his back, he’d felt like a king. They had walked their horses down a dray-wide road past outbuildings that resembled a small town. Shearing shed, men’s quarters, overseer’s house, Matt’s house, stables, yards: Scrubber remembered them all. He recalled kids running across a paddock, windmills turning, dogs barking, the smell of food in the air and the tang of sheep droppings. Then the sheep appeared on the horizon like a great moving blanket. Scrubber had watched bug-eyed as the mob grew closer, until they were all he could see: a great shining carpet of blinding whiteness.

Matt had pulled a shilling coin from his pocket. On one side was the head of a great ram, his horns almost running over the rim of the coin. ‘You keep it, Scrubber,’ Matt had said. ‘That there ram, he’s from here. Welcome to Waverly Station.’

Of course it was another man’s empire, another man’s legacy, but Scrubber couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride that day.

And now here he was back on Waverly, forty-plus years on and pleased as punch. Scrubber patted the pouch at his waist. This then was where it all began for the Hamiltons. The place Matt’s wife made infamous by default. She’d been a woman in the wrong place all those years ago, and although Matt must have loved her, as it turned out love didn’t equate to trust.