Wanted Dead (21 page)

“Can you read that map?” said Riley.

“It doesn't matter,” said the Sergeant, “I know where Dead Horse Marsh is anyway.”

“Oh.” Then after a while Riley said: “Did you read my last report about Jane Cabel?”

“No.” said the Sergeant, “of course not.”

“Well one of my recommendations was that she be charged with aiding and abetting James Hatton in attempting to murder me.”

The Sergeant laughed.

“There's not a jury in the tablelands 'd bring in a verdict against Janey Cabel. Not in the whole Colony for that matter.”

“Why not?”

“Gawd, you haven't been here long, have you?”

“No,” said Riley.

“You can't put a woman before a jury, particularly not a pretty one. They never convict 'em.”

“I see,” said Riley.

A little later he said: “You realise this expedition is probably another trap, don't you?”

“Could be,” said the Sergeant.

“Why do you suppose we're being sent on it?”

“Mad Mick hates your guts because you haven't been killed yet.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“He hates mine too. He heard me call him Mad Mick once.”

“I see.”

And a little later: “You don't think it would be a good idea if we camped in the bush for a few days and then came back and reported no contact.' ”

“No. Mad Mick'd find out. You can't do anything on the tablelands without everybody else knowing about it. Somebody'd be sure to spot us.”

“So what do we do?”

“Ride out to Dead Horse Marsh, then ride back and report no contact.”

“I see.”

A few moments later the sergeant said explanatory:
“Mad Mick sends me out on a job like this every couple of months or so. I've got to obey orders. I'd get sacked if I didn't.”

A hundred yards further on he said: “I've got a wife and three kids you see.”

Riley said: “Of course it's just possible it may not be a trap. Hatton wouldn't have much interest in anybody but me, and he wouldn't know that Madden would send me after him.”

“Oh yes he would,” said the Sergeant, never taking his solemn eyes off the road ahead: “Anybody who knew Mad Mick would have bet a tenner on that.”

“But does Hatton know—Mad Mick?”

“Everybody knows Mad Mick,” said the Sergeant obscurely.

“Would you mind if we made a detour past Collingwood's station?” Riley said. “I could get hold of a decent horse and some guns. Probably get some for you too.”

“We'll go round by the station if you like,” said the Sergeant. “But I'll stick to what I've got. More than my job's worth to change horses, or use guns that aren't regulation.”

More than your life's worth not to, thought Riley.

Once, as they jogged towards the station, he attempted a more general conversation with the Sergeant.

“Do you think they'll ever clear the bushrangers out?”

“Do a lot of troopers out of jobs if they ever do,” said the Sergeant broodingly.

“Better just tell Collingwood we're going on a routine patrol,” said Riley. “If he thought we were going any where near Hatton he'd want to come too. He's the enthusiastic type.”

“All right,” said the Sergeant.

It was a two day ride to the Dead Horse Marsh, right across the plateau of the tablelands, up over the hills that were the crests of mountains to the west, and imperceptibly down on a journey which would have eventually led to the great flat western plains. As they were making camp at sunset, on the day after they left Goulburn the sergeant said: “I wouldn't mind the reward that's out for Hatton. Five hundred quid each we'd get if we brought him in.”

“Feeling tempted to try?” asked Riley.

“No,” said the Sergeant firmly: “I'd just like the money.”

“What would you do with it?” asked Riley.

“Go back to England,“ said the Sergeant promptly. Riley looked at the man's heavy sun-burned features in surprise. He'd thought Aldrych was an Australian.

“What part of England do you come from?”

“Liverpool”.

“How long have you been out here?”

“Fifteen years.”

Riley marvelled at the infectious qualities of the Australian accent. The man spoke as though he'd never been out of the colony in his life. Could there be anything in the theory that people's voices changed when they came here because they developed the habit of speaking with their mouths almost closed to keep out the summer heat and dust?

“I'd never have thought it,” he said, studying his own mouth movements, and deciding that as far as he could make out, he was speaking with his mouth as open as usual. He wondered how he would sound after ten years in the colony. But surely to God he'd get out before that.

They kept the fire going after they'd eaten, not because it was cool. It was a hot and breathless night and they had to sit away from the flames. But a fire was strangely comforting in the loneliness of the bush.

“Do you suppose Hatton does have a
plant
in these marshes,” Riley said in the quiet voice in which men speak to each other in the bush at night.

“He has a
plant
there all right,” said the Sergeant. “We've known about it for months. But you can't get at it. It's right in the marshes. There's a track through, but no-one knows where it is . . . no trooper anyway. That's why they call it Dead Horse Marsh—because of the horses that have got bogged there and couldn't get out.”

He poked at his teeth with a twig. “Quite a few cattle got lost there too,” he added.

“What exactly do you suppose the sub-Mad Mick expects us to do?”

“Dunno,” said the Sergeant, “don't think he cares. Just hopes we'll get shot.”

“I suppose it's possible at that,” said Riley.

“I won't,” said the Sergeant confidently.

Riley lay long awake on his blanket that night, occasionally waving a small branch about his face in a futile attempt to discourage the mosquitoes. They hadn't bothered about tents on that hot, dry night and Riley gazed into the close stars, brilliant and so plentiful that they almost formed a solid canopy of white silver. If Hatton were really in the Dead Horse Marsh it would be very satisfying to kill him. He wanted Hatton to die, wanted him to die because Dave and Andy were dead, and for some strange and unfathomable reason he wanted him to die because John Cabel was dead. He wanted James Hatton to die and he wanted to kill him.

“Dermot Riley,” he murmured, “you're a changed man, a changed man.”

They'd left the road ten miles back and were winding single file along a cattle track.

They would come to another road shortly, the Sergeant had said, and, by sunset that day to a shanty quite near the Marsh. They would allow themselves to be seen at the shanty and that would be sufficient for word to get back to Goulburn that they'd been there. Then, the Sergeant had announced, they'd take off into the bush for a couple of days before beginning the journey back.

“Aren't we likely to run into trouble at the shanty?” Riley had asked.

“Not unless Hatton himself happens to be there. We'd better try and find out first whether he is or not. No-one else in his gang is likely to make trouble, no-one that I know of.” He paused, then added: “I don't think so, anyway.”

Riley was leading and had to keep Collingwood's hack reined in to prevent it leaving the Sergeant far behind. Riley also had one of Collingwood's breech-loading rifles in his saddle holder and three of Collingwood's revolvers in his belt. He'd brought his sword as well because he'd developed an affection for the weapon, as a man might for some sort of talisman, and there was no point in trying to hide his identity when he was travelling with a fully uniformed trooper. He'd even taken the trouble to put an edge on the blade.

The Sergeant was inclined to be talkative, maintaining a steady stream of conversation as the horses plodded along the path. Riley, in the lead, could hear him quite clearly, but to make himself heard he had
to turn in the saddle. He found this wearing after an hour or so and restricted his replies to yes and no.

“Mind you,” the Sergeant was saying, “you can be lucky in this business. I've known men with up to a thousand pounds or more on their heads brought in without firing a shot.”

“Yes?” said Riley.

“They got Ben Hall over at Forbes that way only this year . . . last May it was.”

“Mm,” said Riley.

“You heard about Ben Hall, didn't you?” Riley had heard about Hall, the one time squatter whose first exploit on the road was to help Frank Gardiner hold up the gold coach at Eugowra Rock. Hall had assumed leadership of the gang when Gardiner had retired and gone to live peacefully in Queensland. Legends about Hall were still rife, and it appeared at one stage he had been as infamous on the tablelands as James Hatton, although he hadn't had his reputation for utterly callous brutality.

“Yes, I heard about him.”

“Did you hear how they got him?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well I'll tell you,” said the sergeant accommodatingly. “He was playing about with this lubra ho was living with a half caste in a shack about twelve miles from Forbes.”

“Mm,” said Riley.

“Well the halfcaste didn't like this, naturally. Funny thing that. Coves like Hall get so sure of themselves that they think they can play around with another man's woman and expect the fella just to stand aside and bow politely.

“Well this half-caste didn't like it at all so one night, in May this was, old Ben's makin' hay in the
shack and this halfcaste slips into town, into Forbes, and tells the troopers where Ben is. Can you hear me all right?”

“Yes, yes,” said Riley, turning in the saddle. “Quite clearly. Go on.”

“Well the boys there get all excited. No-one wants to tangle with Ben Hall, naturally, but then this is the first time anyone's got a good lead on him being anywhere by himself. He left his Mates Gilbert and Dunn behind when he went off after this lubra, which was only natural.

“Anyhow Jimmy Davidson—you run across Jimmy? No, you wouldn't have. He's a sub-inspector in the Lachlan Division; not a bad fellow, bloody sight better than Mad Mick anyway—he sets off into the bush with something like thirty men.”

A huge frill necked lizard basking on a rock hissed its anger at Riley and his horse shied violently.

“Are those things dangerous?” said Riley, looking with aversion at the gaping jaws and yellow mouth. He was irresistibly reminded of the interior of sub-inspector Madden's mouth. Would Madden have a venomous bite? Probably.

“No,” said the Sergeant, “not bad to eat if you ever run short of rations.”

Better to starve, thought Riley. But then it probably wouldn't be really.

They resumed their peaceful journey along the downward sloping path. The Sergeant resumed his story, speaking a little louder now because the cicadas had started again.

Riley found he could hear the Sergeant quite clearly despite the pervading presence of the cicadas' rattle. He could hear the horses' hooves too. It was as though
the cicadas created a sea of sound in which other sounds moved quite freely.

“Where was I? Ah yes. Anyhow it's obvious even to a bloody officer that Ben's gonna hear thirty men barging through the bush long before they get near him, so he calls out Billy Dargin. Now you wouldn't have heard about Billy. He's an abo. Old Freddie Pottinger put him on strength a couple of years' back. You heard of Freddie? He was a baronet our Freddie was. Funny fellow. Started off out here as a trooper and when they found he was a baronet they made him an inspector. Mightn't have been a bad trooper but he was a bloody awful officer, so they say. Anyway, I never met him myself. He shot himself in the end—they were gonna sack him because he couldn't catch Ben Hall, so he shot himself. Funny business.”

Riley drowsed in the saddle, the cicadas and the Sergeant's monologue acting as a dual soporific.

“Anyhow, Billy Dargin was a tracker and a beaut he was too. Track goannas over an acre of rock, they say. Davidson sent Billy on to the shack to see if old Ben was still there.”

Riley noticed that the Sergeant always spoke of Hall with a measure of affection.

“Another funny thing about that whole business,” said the Sergeant who was so fond of digression that Riley was finding it difficult to follow the thread of his story,” is that Billy once used to work for Ben. When Ben was a squatter Billy worked on his station. Old Freddie talked him into joining the force when he found out how he could track. They tell me it used to be as funny thing as you'd ever see to watch old Billy, wearing a rag of a coat, trying to line up on parade with the troopers and Freddie Pottinger having a fit every time he seen him.

“Anyhow, where was I?”

Riley didn't know.

“Ah yes, well, Billy goes on and creeps around the shack and finds there's no sign of Ben in the place. It's all dark and as far as he can make out the lubra's asleep inside by herself.

“Well I told you Billy was one miracle of a tracker, so damn me if he doesn't pick Ben's tracks up in the dark and follow him to his camp. Ben had camped only a mile or so away from the shack.

“Maybe he was tired out,” the Sergeant gave a lubricous chuckle.

“Anyway Billy snoops around Ben, who's sleeping like the dead, but doesn't do anything about it. He hadn't been told to you see. He'd only been told to find Ben. Davidson had forgot to say anything about shooting him, and abo's aren't very bright. So old Billy slips back to the mob and tells them were Ben is.

“Jimmy Davidson gets all excited about this, so he gives Billy Dargin a revolver and tells him to go on up and shoot Ben. And the rest of the mob follows.