Wild Lands (5 page)

‘You are to be complimented on your willingness to assume Mrs Carter's role as schoolmistress at my humble institution. You seem capable of handling the duties required of the position.'

‘I have been assisting my mother these many years,' Kate answered carefully.

Crumbs littered his whiskers. They hung amidst the coarse hairs as if being stored for future meals. ‘Yes, and the free education you received at her side during that time has been of great benefit to you. You are skilled with the pen. I thought perhaps you would undertake the writing of my sermons as dictated by me, as your mother did.'

Kate felt a surge of relief followed by awkwardness. Carefully closing the book that she'd been reading aloud from during lessons, she placed it on the table that was used as a pulpit on Sundays. ‘I don't share my mother's religious inclinations,' Kate replied. ‘But, if you would spare me that role I would be pleased to stay on as teacher here. The children are quite advanced for their age and –'

‘You are a non-believer?' His nose twitched. ‘But you attend our services, you have prayed side by side with your mother.' His voice rose. ‘By these actions you have professed to be a good Christian soul.'

‘I have professed nothing, Reverend. I simply do as I am told and try to live my life honestly,' her gaze met his, ‘as expected.' Kate could tell by the expression on his face that her answer had not pleased him, but it was the truth.

The Reverend placed the bible carefully next to a bundle of birch sticks on the table. The swatch stung the skin painfully when applied with some enthusiasm. Kate had never used it, although her mother had been quite fond of the punishment. ‘I did not realise that temptation was rife within our household. I am remiss, my child. I have done you a disservice.'

‘Not at all. I believe that there is a right way and a wrong way to live one's life, but I don't believe in an all-knowing God and I certainly don't believe in your church's beliefs. What is the point, after all?' asked Kate.

The Reverend grasped the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white.

‘God did not save my father from an early death,' Kate continued. ‘Nor it appears will he intercede on my mother's behalf. We only have ourselves to rely on, Reverend. The insubstantial will not feed us or clothe us or care for us when we are ill, no matter how glorious you make him sound, no matter how terrifying. I do believe that for some the idea of such a figure may be a comfort, and I certainly agree that the reciting of words at burial must be done, if only to bid farewell to our loved ones and offer our respect. But if your perception of a good Christian soul is reliant on your beliefs then I am certainly not a member of your flock and I never professed to be one.'

‘I understand entirely, Kate.' His tone grew silky. ‘You have your mother's enquiring mind and with regard to her own gradual understanding and acceptance of the faith she herself required tutorship. We spent many an hour together in fellowship.'

‘I have no doubt,' Kate replied sarcastically.

‘One's faith is extraordinarily important.' He edged slowly around
the table. ‘The Great Almighty offers guidance, hope, salvation. I am the way,' he said loudly, ‘the truth and the light.'

The children playing at the rear of the building paused briefly in their game to look at the two adults.

‘I can help you. You must let me help you.' The Reverend held her gaze, the intensity of which was quite mesmerising. He clasped Kate's hands between his. ‘I have great admiration for you, Kate. You are your mother's daughter, strong-willed, bright, but sensible enough to know your place in the world, to understand your shortcomings, to know where you belong.' He paused, tightening his grip. ‘I have always favoured a woman's obedience and duty. These characteristics are so much more attractive than fleeting beauty. And I see in you a strength that your mother didn't possess. A strength that would allow you to sit with me and talk of our Lord with an open mind.'

Kate pulled her hands free of his clammy grip.

‘But such instruction is for another time. For now we have other matters to attend to.' The Reverend cleared his throat. ‘In short I am delighted to offer you the positions of schoolmistress, housekeeper and your mother's room in my household. And all that that entails,' he finished bluntly, wetting his lips.

‘My mother is not yet dead.'

The Reverend tilted his neck skyward to the bark ceiling. ‘God's will be done.' Above them a large furry spider scurried along a wooden beam. ‘In truth I have for some time found her bed cold.'

Kate's fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. ‘I am not –'

‘Miss, Miss Carter.' Young Thomas Prescott was grim-faced as he ran down the aisle.

‘Think on this, Kate. Where else will you go? Who will take you in?'

‘There are black kids outside, miss. See?' A grubby finger pointed through the open shutters, to where two young Aboriginals
sat cross-legged in the grass. The pair were close enough to hear lessons. ‘They're not allowed to do learning, are they? Not with us.'

‘We are not up-country, Thomas,' Kate reprimanded. ‘We call them natives or Aboriginals, remember?'

‘Well, my pa will tan me hide if I go schooling with blacks.' Thomas wiped a ragged shirtsleeve across a runny nose. ‘Please, miss, send them blacks away.'

The Reverend clasped the boy's shoulder. ‘Your parents are convicts, Thomas. It is not up to you to tell your betters who can or can't be schooled here.'

‘Well, blacks is blacks.'

Reaching for the swatch of birch, the Reverend thrashed the boy's bare legs. ‘Then don't come back.'

‘Reverend Horsley,' Kate complained.

Thomas kicked the Reverend's shin and ran out the door. Kate lifted a hand to her mouth, hiding the smile on her lips.

‘You are too soft on them,' he replied, wiping a sheen of moisture from his brow, although the exertion appeared to have invigorated him. ‘The lower classes need to be kept in their place if there is to be any semblance of normal society. England is dependent on us to ensure that this colony retains the dignity and societal norms that are expected in the civilised world. You'd do well to remember that, Kate, for you yourself carry the stain of convict association.'

Kate's jaw tightened. ‘I have no interest in your offer,' she replied brusquely.

‘Don't be ridiculous.'

‘How could you expect me to accept it, after the way you have lived with my mother? You, who profess your Godliness, you, who tell me that I carry the stain, as if you were better than me, than my mother.' The breath caught in her throat. Kate thought he would strike her for the Reverend's hand lifted and then just as quickly he lowered it to his side. Kate had been witness to his
beltings before. The man was not averse to hitting woman or child. She had no idea where she would go, but she wasn't staying with this man a moment longer.

‘Your mother has been well cared for.'

‘My mother only decided to stay in your employ because she was scared. Scared to go out alone with a young child to fend for. Do you think that I would agree to live as my mother has lived? My mother's family were free settlers, my father, although convicted for forgery, a crime he did not commit, rose to become a respected farmer in his own right. Do you think I would allow myself to –'

‘Our arrangement was not uncommon. You know that, Kate,' he placated.

‘Have you forgotten how my mother slaved for you these past ten years? She has assisted in the writing of your sermons, has been your housekeeper and run the school, for which she received no more benefit than a new dress every two years. And you who depended on her for so much could not go so far as to give her your name.'

‘You have grown disrespectful, Kate,' he responded. ‘I think it best if you go indoors and attend to your mother. Perhaps in her final hours she will remind you of your good fortune …' He hesitated. ‘Your mother was not the virtuous creature you speak of, my girl, or did you think she was faithful to your father's memory between his passing and your arrival on my doorstep?'

Kate's mouth opened and closed. She didn't believe it.

‘Her doings were not unknown to me, and still I provided for her and you. And you accuse me of not taking her as my wife? Beauty is a curse, your mother traded on hers. So be it.' The Reverend lifted the prayer book to his chest, his collar yellow where it rubbed against the folded skin of his neck. ‘I will leave this matter to another time, when you are not so overwrought, when common sense has returned. Go to your mother,' he urged, ‘stay with her
until the end. Forget your duties until she slips from this world to the next. But while you sit by her side, ask her, for both our sakes, if her time here has been happy. She will answer yes.'

‘Kate … Kate?'

Madge was breathless. The woman halted abruptly on seeing the Reverend and stood rooted to the spot in the dim light of the schoolhouse. ‘I beg your leave, Reverend sir, but I've news. It's your mother, Kate,' she faltered. ‘She's gone.' Madge moved towards them, twisting a dirty apron between her hands. ‘I would have come for you but there was no time. I only went in to see if she wanted a little water. She was awake, so I propped up the pillows, but her eyes never opened, not even to blink. But she asked for you, she did, said a few words and then the breath left her.' Madge let out a little puff of air. ‘Just like that and she was gone.'

A band of tightness circled Kate's chest.

‘Kate, did you hear what Madge said?' the Reverend spoke loudly. ‘Your mother is dead, may she rest in peace.'

‘What, what did she say?' asked Kate breathlessly.

Madge pressed her mouth together, rolling the skin until her lips all but disappeared. ‘She said to tell you that she was sorry.'

An air of expectation seeped from the Reverend. Flicking through the pages of the bible, he placed the book in Kate's hand. ‘John, chapter five, verses 24 to 26. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”

‘
Shall not come into condemnation
, think on it, Kate.' The bible was swiftly removed and the Reverend strode down the aisle. ‘I'll make the necessary arrangements, however the body will need to be washed and, Madge, you will, from this moment onwards, speak to Miss Carter with regards to all meals.'

Kate sat heavily on one of the benches. She felt as if all the air had left her body, that she would never breathe again. The older
woman approached silently, an eyebrow lifted. ‘Well, that's that then. At least she went quiet. Not a whimper.'

It was difficult to believe that her mother was dead. ‘I should have been with her.'

‘Rubbish. You sat with her last night and the night before that. And besides, Lesley Carter wasn't the type to put up with mollycoddling. She was a survivor, your mother.' Madge sniffed. ‘Well, a woman has to be. But in the end when your time's up I reckon it makes no difference if there's someone holding your hand or not. Once you're on the way to the boneyard there's no stopping the journey.'

Kate didn't agree. No matter what Madge said she knew the comfort that could be given by the touch of a hand. She'd seen it in her father's eyes. ‘Do you think my mother was happy here, Madge?'

The cook turned up her nose. ‘Happy? What's happy? For some it may be a good meal, others a place to sleep, for meself any year without a thrashing is a boon. You'll be right. Set yourself up in the cottage. Do as he says. There are worse places than this. You'll see things will turn out like a good baked loaf.'

Kate waited until Madge had left and then sank to the ground and began to sob.

1837 July – on the western side
of the Blue Mountains

The two men stood on the sloping earth where the dense trees rose from low ground between grassy hills. The land below was damp from recent rain and would be hard to burn, so they concentrated on the hill, knowing that the southerly wind would drive the flames into the grass and towards the scrub some distance beyond. The area had not been burnt since this time last year and Bidjia was keen to entice new growth in the spring. His people needed food and the fire would encourage the leaves and grasses to sprout. The tender young plants would attract animals and increase hunting opportunities, as well as stimulating yams and other food sources.

Forming a nest of dry grass, Bidjia sat cross-legged on the ground. In his hands he held a stick, which he began rotating into a notch cut into a piece of softwood. The stick twirled quickly between his palms. He held it close to the nest and the heat borne of his handiwork caused a dark fleck to fall on the dry grass. His son, Jardi, picked up the smouldering pile and waved the grass gently through the air. A flame appeared.

‘Where is your brother?' Bidjia asked his son.

Bronzewing had only returned to them last night and already he was disrupting the day. Two of their clan waited on the edge of the scrub some distance away. Once the grass was fired, the game would rush to escape it and head straight for the hunters.

And once smoke appeared, the whites would know where they were.

The younger man shrugged and pointed to the thick trees behind them.

‘Find him.' Bidjia watched as his son walked swiftly away, he was in no mood for delays. The white settlers were a half-day's walk away, but with their horses they could travel quickly over the land. It was as it had been on the great waterhole side of the blue hills. The strangers came slowly at first, but once the road across the mountains was built by the men in chains, the whites came in great numbers, claiming land, building dwellings and disrupting the old ways.

The Lycetts, the ones who had come to build their hut near Bidjia's clan in the folds of the hills, were friendly enough, but they brought sheep with them and Bidjia had already been warned many times that a firing of the grasses would not be tolerated. Such disrespect was unknown to him. The whites did not own this land and the sheep fouled up the waterways for man and beast alike, ate the grass to the ground and stomped the rest to dust.

Jardi's white brother darted through the trees, circled him swiftly and dived, cuffing an ankle so that they both fell to the ground. ‘I thought I had missed you.' Jardi accepted the older man's hand and was pulled to his feet. ‘Now I'm not so sure.'

Bronzewing laughed. ‘So then, have you found yourself a woman yet?'

‘Have you?' Jardi countered, as they began to walk back towards Bidjia. ‘You've been gone a year.'

‘Nothing took my fancy,' he admitted.

‘And the business, it went well? You were too busy arguing with my father last night to share all your stories.'

‘There isn't much else to tell.' Bronzewing had crossed the mountains back to Parramatta last year with Mr Lycett and assisted in taking his wool to market. With a good price obtained, he'd then joined a party of settlers intent on journeying south-west towards the Murrumbidgee River. He'd not travelled to that part of the colony before and although he was employed to act as intermediary with the various clans and tribes along the route, he was, more importantly, an extra white man with an extra musket. The trip had been eventful. The wife of one of the settlers had given birth along the way and lost the child; they'd had sheep rushed and speared. Bronzewing had not always been successful dealing with this land's first people. His knowledge of the different languages was slight, but he knew their ways and he did his best to reassure both black and white in the hope of avoiding attacks, by either party. In his absence, however, relations between Bidjia's clan and the Lycetts had deteriorated.

Ahead, Bidjia waited, his brow wrinkled tightly. ‘Late,' he accused.

‘Must you burn here?' Bronzewing complained. This is what they'd quarrelled about last night. ‘Surely we could go a mile or so further west. Jardi has told me how angry Mr Lycett is with the clan for burning his land. Do you really want to make things worse?'

‘You have spent too much time with the whites.'

Bronzewing adjusted the spear in his hand. It felt good to have the familiar weapon back in his grasp.

‘Go,' the older man told them.

Bidjia waited as the two young men detoured around the slope of the hill so as not to disturb the animals. Spears in hand, the sinewy frame of Jardi matched the longer stride of his white brother. Although Bronzewing was a foot taller and well-muscled for his age, he'd had to train hard to match Jardi's natural ability. The boy
Bidjia had taken from the humpy those many years ago was now a man, brought up in the ways of Bidjia's people and schooled by the well-meaning Archibald Lycett, who'd tried to entice the boy back to an unknown God and the life he'd lost.

When the boys were out of sight, Bidjia lit the grass. The flames caught quickly, fanning across the ground and gathering pace. A line of smoke rose into the sky as the fire grew in intensity, fed by the wind. Bidjia skirted the edge of the burnt ground. In the distance he could see a small group of wallabies racing away from the fire towards the waiting hunters. They would eat well tonight.

By the time Bidjia reached the scrub, one of the animals had already been speared. Colby and Darel, the other men of his clan, were talking to Bronzewing and his son and were in a hurry to leave. They stood engulfed by the smoke, their eyes streaming, the wallaby lying on the ground between them.

‘Lycett,' Colby stated, explaining that one of the settler's men was riding nearby on horseback.

‘Let's go,' Bidjia told them.

Bronzewing led Bidjia and Jardi westward through the dense bush. They followed a different path to that of the other two men in case the whites gave chase, weaving through thick trees gnarled with age. Their route back to the camp was not direct but if they were lucky, Lycett wouldn't be able to prove that it was them who had lit the fire, although the man would guess at the truth.

‘You can go to Lycett and make the peace if it is needed,' Bidjia told Bronzewing. The white boy had formed a bond with the settler over the years and was friends with Lycett's eldest, a straggly-limbed youth named Winston, who spent most of his time drawing shapes on paper. It was a strange occupation for a man.

They ran at a steady pace in single file, startling the odd kangaroo and wallaby. Through the trees ahead they could see sheep grazing and, close to the animals, a shepherd. Bidjia was quick to change their path. They crossed a dry gully and were
nearly out of sight of the shepherd when a musket shot rang out. They halted immediately, fearing the worst.

‘It is some distance from us,' Bronzewing advised, ‘and with the wind as it is the sound could have travelled much further.'

Bidjia wasn't convinced but they kept moving. The boy was usually right. Most of the settlers in the area knew Bronzewing, although they called him by his white name, Adam. As a child he'd been known as the bush-boy, a description that had allowed him to move relatively freely between blacks and whites, but with age came mistrust. There were some on both sides who questioned his loyalty and treated him warily. But Bidjia was glad to have taken Bronzewing from the hut near the water on the other side of the mountain. A man could never have too many strong sons. Had he been a weakling he would have abandoned him, but the boy was quick to learn and begrudgingly his clan accepted him.

When Bidjia had first come across the humpy, the day of the white man's leaving, he knew from the beginning that the boy's mother would not survive if her man did not return. Instead of spending the days usefully, making things or foraging like women should, she moved like a mouse and gave fright at the slightest sound. In contrast, the boy was bright-eyed and curious and the darkness of his hair, which shone a burnished copper in the light, reminded Bidjia of a Bronzewing pigeon. The day the warriors from another tribe came through, his clan had decided to cross the mountains and escape the encroaching white settlers. It was by chance that he'd approached the place of the white woman and child and seen the warriors. The mountain people were aggressive. He'd guessed that they would kill her. While many of his people were confused by the whites' use of the land and the brutality that they directed against their own people, others were angry with them and sought vengeance for the changes forced upon their way of life. Bidjia didn't even think of saving the woman, he only wanted the boy.

So he had taken him and, with the few remaining clan members, they had walked away from their country, following the ancient pathways through the mountains and down the valley to the plains. The scuffling between two ancestral creator spirits, the giant eel-like Gurangatch, and the large native cat, Mirragan, had scratched out the features of the terrain, the rivers and hills, and it was the story of this unknown territory and the description created that helped to direct them to new lands. Bidjia would never have imagined that the whites would cross the mountains as well.

They reached the camp some hours later. A wisp of smoke and the scent of roasting meat meandered through the trees, leading them to a shady clearing where two bark humpies sat among the timber. Colby and Darel had arrived some time before them.

‘We saw no-one,' Colby told them as the men sat around the camp fire. After Bidjia, he was the eldest of the clan. ‘But my spear was ready.'

‘As was mine,' Darel said enthusiastically.

‘We saw a shepherd in the distance and heard musket fire, but that was it,' Bronzewing told them. ‘And just as well, fighting is the last thing you want, if you wish to stay here.'

‘And how would you know what is best for us?' Colby asked. ‘You have been gone from here many months and you come back and tell us whether we should fight or not?' He stared at Bronzewing from across the fire. ‘I think you would put the white Lycett first. He is your colour, and you are not of ours.'

‘Enough,' Bidjia warned. Drinking water from a kangaroo skin bag he passed it around the group. The wallaby smelt nearly done. It had been cooked whole in the fire pit and unskinned to retain its goodness.

‘One of Lycett's men came here when we were hunting,' Colby advised the group. ‘Merindah spoke to him.'

Colby's woman, Annie, approached the men in Merindah's place. Merindah was heavily pregnant with Bidjia's child and kept
her distance from the men now her time was drawing close. Annie pointed at Bronzewing. ‘Lycett wanted to know if you had returned. I said nothing.'

Bronzewing nodded.

She backed away quickly to wait near one of the shelters with Bidjia's woman and the clan's three surviving children, a young boy and girl belonging to Annie, and a sick one-year-old, who was Merindah and Bidjia's child.

‘He knows it was us.' Jardi tugged the wallaby from the fire pit and began to cut pieces of cooked meat from the carcass, before pulling out the heart, liver and kidneys.

Bidjia accepted the organs and divided them up between himself and Colby. The other men received a square of bark with chunks of meat on it and began to eat. Wooden bowls held the wild nuts and berries the women had prepared. ‘When the moon grows fat and lazy we will burn the adjoining ridge.' Reaching for a kidney, he chewed on the tender flesh, the juices running down his chin. ‘If the rains come the grasses will grow thick and fast.'

‘There is plenty of game here, to hunt and trap.' Colby ate hungrily. ‘It will be a good season for us.'

‘What about Lycett? Maybe we should go to another place further away,' Jardi suggested.

‘This is another place.' His father reached for the fresh water, took a sip and then stuck his finger into a bag of sugar and sucked at the sweetness. The sugar was a ration, along with blankets, provided to the clan by the Lycetts in exchange for occasional work, such as barking trees. ‘Our tribal lands are on the other side of the blue hills where the mullet run and the lilies grow. Within those lands is the place where my mother took the afterbirth when I was born and buried it in the ground. That is where my mother laid me down. That is my land. Do you expect us to keep moving forever?'

The men ate silently. It was difficult to argue with Bidjia.

‘You who are born of this land may go to your sacred place, the place of your totem and perform the rituals that make this land grow and flourish. You have this right. I do not. I cannot go to the place of the yam and do the ceremony to make the yam plentiful. I cannot ensure the release of the life force to which I am connected. I am stolen from my land.'

The men finished eating, the truth of Bidjia's words reminding each of them how he suffered.

‘You saved your clan, Bidjia.'

The Elder of the tribe looked at Bronzewing. ‘Only some,' he muttered.

They sat by the flames, the sadness dissipating as birds settled in the trees around them and night creatures began to forage.

As darkness began to send its wispy shadows across the clearing, one by one they moved slightly away from the campfire. Bronzewing stretched out his legs and rubbed his shoulders against the bark of the tree behind him. A few feet away Bidjia rested his aching muscles by lying flat in the dirt on his back.

With the men's leaving, Annie served up meat for the children and herself, and then carried nuts and fruits to Merindah. Bronzewing shouldn't have been surprised to return home and find Merindah with child again, the second in two years, however she'd been unhappy here since her arrival and a year had not improved her countenance. She was a pretty girl, whose young body had attracted envious glances from both Darel and Colby, but she was clearly miserable. Her sick child lay on a piece of bark while Annie's two children ate and played.