The Potato Factory (89 page)

Mary ate, and boiled the billy for tea, for she found herself very hungry. Then she packed her bag and prepared to leave, but suddenly she realised that she did not know where the path lay. She moved around for more than an hour without finding it and then knew that she had become completely lost. Sam Goodhead had cautioned her against leaving the track by more than a few feet. 'Fer if ya become lost in the forest ya will die as surely as if ya put a gun to yer own 'ead,' he had warned.

It was then Mary heard the screech of the green rosella, a sound she knew as well as the beat of her own heart, the curious 'kussik-kussik' call repeated and then a bell-like contact note; when alarmed, a shrill piping sound. Rosellas do not fly in flocks in the spring but in pairs, and now she heard them both as they chattered somewhere to her left. Mary, ever superstitious and with no better plan to follow, moved towards the sound.

Mary had been three days in the forest, for though she did not know it, she had lain all the next day and the night that followed beside the stream in the delirium caused from the wasp stings. Now, without questioning the curious circumstances that the sound of the two parrots never seemed far from her and that she never seemed to approach nearer or to see them, she responded to their call. Sometimes she would turn to take an easier way through the undergrowth and she would hear the shrill piping of alarm from the two birds. After a while she learned to correct her course to the sound of their calls.

Mary fervently believed that the great mountain had answered her call for help. Even in her most prosaic moments, Mary thought of the mountain as her friend and lover, which was why she did not question the call of the two birds and the fact that they never left her.

Late on the afternoon of the fourth day she suddenly came across the track again and soon after broke out from the trees. She had been climbing steadily all day and now she found herself in a small valley above the tree line, a dent in a mountain which rose steeply upwards. It was as though a sharp line had been drawn where the mountain broke out of the apron of trees and into the coarse tussock grass of the high mountain country. The track now led upwards and seemed quite well worn, there being no forest growth to obscure it.

Mary walked along the track a short distance but then, in the fading light decided to retreat into the forest for the night. It was some minutes after she had returned and moved a safe distance from the track when she realised that the 'kussik-kussik' calls of the two rosellas were no longer with her.

She rose again at dawn, her body stiff and sore, and boiled the billy for tea. She ate sparingly, not knowing how much longer she would be in the wilderness and conscious that if she should find Hawk she would need to share her supplies with him.

However, by now her hope of finding her son was greatly diminished. The forest had left her in despair and even though she had come safely through it, she now saw that a wild man might hide effectively from a thousand troopers and not be found in a lifetime. Her only hope was the notion that the monster who had captured her son rode on horseback, and horses do not find fodder in the forest but need grassland. He would be forced to live or spend time near some sort of pasture, and this meant open ground.

Mary climbed steadily all morning. The mountains, she discovered, were punctured with small, sharp valleys like indented cones, many of them turned to small blue lakes with grassy walls too steep to climb down into. She would often stop for breath and far below her she could see the endless stretch of green forest turned blue in the distance, and the glinting, wide stretch of the Huon River twenty or more miles away. The mountain, despite the sun, grew cold as she rose higher, and a sharp, icy wind whipped her skin.

On her first night she found a small box canyon which was protected from the wind and made her camp. It was perhaps a foolish place to spend the night, for there was no place to retreat, but her hand throbbed painfully where it had been burned by the billy and Mary was too spent of effort to care. Her greatest concern was to escape the cutting wind. Besides, the mountain, but for rock and grass and bracken fern, was bare of any acceptable hiding place.

Mary woke with the crack of a rock striking near her head, her nostrils filled with the musty smell of horse sweat. She turned to look upwards and saw a horse and rider not fifteen paces from where she lay.

Mary now sat up with the blankets still clasped about her neck to form a protective tent about her body, groping for the pistol which she had placed fully loaded under a rock near her side the night before. The folds of the blanket concealed her free hand as she found it, though her swollen hand made it difficult to grip firmly the small pistol.

The man on the horse did not make a sound but simply stared down at her. He was dressed almost entirely in kangaroo and opossum skins but for a trooper's high-topped white cap much battered and entirely blackened. His filthy beard fell almost to his waist and his unkempt hair hung wild and knotted to his shoulders. What remained of his face was dark with dirt and criss-crossed with scars and his nose was squashed flat, like a pig's snout, and from it a stream of yellow snot ran into his matted beard. A red tongue flicked from the dark hair of his face as though he was tasting the air or testing the nature of the wind, savouring her body smell.

It was then that she saw Hawk. Or perhaps it wasn't, except that the skeleton attached to the rope which led from the back of the horse was black in colour. Mary gasped. 'Hawk!' she cried. The skeleton raised both its hands but did not speak and now Mary saw that it was her son. His hands worked slowly and Mary tried to follow. Hawk's hands simply spelled, 'Mama'.

'Hawk! Mama's come!' Mary shouted and then looking up at the monster on horseback she screamed, 'He's my boy, my precious boy, give me him!'

The creature looked backwards and jerked violently at the rope so that Hawk was thrown to his knees. Then he slowly dismounted and, undoing the rope from the saddle, pulled it, bringing Hawk back to his feet. He then dragged him over to a large boulder and tied him to it. Turning, he drove his fist into the child's face. Hawk made no sound as he fell.

At the sight of Hawk knocked to the ground from the vicious blow, Mary began to weep. 'You bastard! You fucking bastard!' she moaned, repeating the words over and over again in her terrible distress.

The man moved slowly to tie the reins of his horse to the point of a sharp rock. He knew he had Mary trapped. The bluff rose behind and on either side of her, and he himself blocked her only chance of escape.

Now he advanced slowly towards Mary, who rose to her feet as he approached. He was no more than four feet from her when she raised the pistol behind the blanket, but the wild man, perhaps sensing danger, suddenly lunged forward and threw her to the ground. The pistol fell from Mary's swollen hand on to her coat, which she had the previous night spread on the ground, so its falling made little noise. Mary landed on her back, the pistol digging painfully into her ribs.

The monster, now on top of her, panting violently, tore open the blankets which still half covered her, then ripped the top of her dress exposing her breasts. He was not a tall man but wide and powerfully strong, and he now spread one thick hand around Mary's throat to pin her down. With his free hand he began to tear the skirt from her body.

He was slobbering at the mouth, his tongue darting in and out. Then his arm rose above his shoulder and he smashed the side of her face with the back of his hand. Releasing his grip on her throat, he got to his knees and quickly pulled down his greasy hide trousers to show a huge, jerking erection. Parting Mary's legs roughly, he tried to force an entry.

Mary, almost unconscious from the blow, did not scream but fought to keep her wits about her and willingly allowed her legs to open. The monster was grunting and puffing as he tried to penetrate, but Mary's prisoner's purse prevented his penis from entering her. She felt his fingers grope at her and then with a grunt he withdrew the brass cylinder and threw it aside. Then he jammed himself between her legs, again trying to force his way into her. Mary felt the sharp pain as he entered and at the same moment she pulled the trigger of the pistol she held against his stomach. She pulled back the hammer and pulled the trigger a second time.

A look of complete and uncomprehending surprise appeared on the wild man's face and then he gripped his stomach with both hands. Mary set the hammer back and pulled a third time, this shot moving upwards and entering his heart, shortly followed by another. The creature jerked once and then his body slumped over her. Instantly he voided from both his natural apertures.

The sound of the four shots echoed and reverberated through the small canyon as Mary lay terrified under the fallen monster, his member still jerking within her.

Screaming, she pushed at the dead man and after a few frantic moments was able to climb out from under him. She was covered in blood and guts, shit and vomit, both her breasts stained crimson with his blood, which also soaked what remained of her dress and petticoat.

Mary did not even think to pause but ran towards Hawk, who had regained his feet and now cowered against the rock. She grabbed him and clasped him to her and howled as though she herself were some primitive creature and then, at last, she wept and wept, holding her son in her arms.

In years to come Hawk would grow into a man who stood six feet eight inches tall and weighed two hundred and eighty pounds with no lard upon him. People would whisper as he passed that he had once cheated the gallows. As proof they would point to the thick collar of scar tissue about his neck.

'The rope could not break his neck,' they'd whisper, 'but it took his voice.'

This last part was an appropriate enough explanation. Hawk had been dragged behind the wild man's horse and the constant pulling and falling had destroyed his vocal cords. He would never speak again. So that the full trauma of his experience might be truly appreciated, it should be added that during the six months he was enslaved he had been repeatedly sodomised.

On the return journey a most fortunate circumstance befell the terrified couple. The timber getters had found Mary's trail and set out to find who had intruded into their domain. They came upon Mary and Hawk making their way down the mountain on the wild man's horse not two hours after she had killed him. Mary was wearing her blood-stained overcoat to cover her nakedness, and Hawk clutched one of the bloody blankets about his body.

Two of the timber getters continued up the mountain to inspect the corpse which Mary had covered with the remaining blanket, and the three others escorted Mary and Hawk safely down through the wilderness, allowing them to remain on the horse. The two men soon enough caught up with them and started to shout excitedly from some distance before they finally arrived.

'She's killed Mad Dog Mulray!' one of them cried. 'Shot 'im through the 'eart!' the other shouted so as not to be outdone by his partner. One of them carried over his shoulder a bundle made from the opossum skin coat the wild man had worn. The second one now wore a set of military pistols in his belt and was waving Mary's pepperbox pistol which, in her state of shock, she had entirely and most foolishly forgotten to retrieve.

There was much excitement among the three remaining men and the oldest, a man who had earlier most formally introduced himself to Mary as Hindmarsh, looked up at her admiringly. Then the lad threw the skin bundle to the ground and untied it. Inside was the severed head of the wild man.

Mary gasped, though she was too shocked to scream, or perhaps there was no screaming left in her. She instinctively grabbed Hawk and placed her hands over his eyes.

'You 'ave done us a great service, Mary Abacus,' Hindmarsh said at last. 'He were a divil, a monster creature, the anti-Christ hisself. He's murdered seven of our forest folk.' He touched the severed head with the toe of his boot and then turned to the lad who had placed it at his feet. 'Tie it up again, Saul.' Then he laughed. 'It will make a grand Christmas present on the gate post o' the police station in Southport!'

One of the young men now handed the prisoner's purse to Hindmarsh, who examined it briefly and then looked up at Mary.

'This be your'n miss?' he asked. It was obvious to Mary that he well knew the nature of the object he held in his hands.

Mary nodded. 'In it be fifty pounds, it were money offered for the recovery o' me son,' she explained. 'The reward like.' She placed her hand on Hawk's shoulder.

The men surrounding her were rough and ready and now they laughed and looked at each other, their expressions plainly bemused. 'The nigger be your son?' Hindmarsh asked surprised, looking first at Mary and then into Hawk's dark and frightened face.

'Yes, mine!' Mary cried fiercely.

Hawk jumped at the tone of Mary's voice and the blanket slipped to his shoulders and now Hindmarsh and the others saw where the flesh was cut half an inch into the boy's neck to expose the bones. In other parts it was festered and suppurating and slabs of pink scar tissue had been laid down from earlier rope burns. 'Jaysus, Mary Mother o' Gawd!' Hindmarsh said. Then he handed the brass cylinder back to Mary.

'This is not ours to own,' he said.

'I be happy to pay it all, if you'll escort us back to the river where we has a boat,' Mary said.

'Yes we knows about that,' Hindmarsh said. 'It were not very well hid.' He smiled. 'We'll be after takin' you anyways, miss, you'll not be payin' us for
that
privilege!' He pointed to the horse and then the pistols in the young man's belt. ' 'Orse and pistols, they be payment more'n enough.' He looked at the four younger men so that they might pay keener attention to what he was about to say. 'We owes you, Mary Abacus. You be a legend from now among the timber getters, accepted as one of our own kind and welcome to return at any time you wishes, even though I daresay you be a bloody Protestant!' He paused and then added with a grin, 'And so we won't be after makin' you a saint though you comes a bloody sight nearer than most I've 'eard o' what comes from Rome!'