The Roving Party Page 2

  Now I told you about that, said Bickle and laughed. A short tight cough. It wasnt no fairly drawn hand.

  Batman moved closer. So you’re callin me a swindler?

  I’m callin you a swindler. A chiseller. A bilker. You choose whichever suits you best. Pleased with himself, the overseer looked around at his mate and at the black men arranged upon Batman’s verandah.

  There was a little swell about Batman’s throat where he swallowed the word he’d almost used. Remember where you are, he said.

  All I know is you turned a knave when it was needed. And knaves dont come up too often.

  Well it come up. Now you owe me.

  I owe you? Christ. Let a man be, would you. That canny luck of yours will show next time we front up to the table. By God it will. You might just have your money then.

  Batman nodded, a slow and measured rocking of the head, but he showed no satisfaction. The horse huffed and shied in her harness. Behind the farmhouse the gum trees lashed in the winds. Batman walked before the line of men who stood with their heads bowed, shivering in their rough hessians. You have been told no doubt what I mean to see through, he said. What that means for youse fellows is this: if you’ve no stomach for killin, say so now.

  The four men looked about but each kept quiet.

  Then you are with me, he said. Batman’s shirt and coat sleeves were rolled back showing his forearms pasted with a slick of lamb’s blood. He wiped his arms with a rag, returned it to his pocket and unfurled his sleeves. Staring at the men, he continued: Now I’ve as much regard for peace as anyone but I’ve been given a contract by the Governor and I intend to collect on it.

  The men shifted nervously.

  How many ayou had seen a black before today? He indicated with a nod of his head the two men of the Parramatta where they leaned their long bodies against the uprights of his verandah. The new men seemed unsure of what he expected. He came around to where he might better catch their eyes or look down into their grubby weathered faces. You boy?

  No sir.

  No?

  No sir, not a one.

  Well take a look. Go on. They’re tamed.

  The boy raised his eyes, as did the rest, to study the three black men, and in turn they regarded the prisoners across that open space of rutted grass and mud which served as a turning circle for carts. The black men were alike in bearing and build, tall and well shaped for bush life, properly clothed but for their bare feet. Pigeon kept himself shaved and tended and made a fine figure in his calico jacket but his mate, John Crook, wore on his head a red wool cap marred with filth and holes. It was Crook who leaned forward and addressed the new men in his own language, his hand waving in anger.

  Thinks it’s white dont it, said the old cur. Dressed up like that.

  A cold silence followed. Pigeon came down off the verandah and stepped forward. For a moment he put out his hand to the men as any gentleman might but withdrew it when they plainly ignored him. Maybe they did not know what to make of him, a free man in the employ of Batman, or perhaps they saw in him something of their own failings. Only the boy put out his hand for Pigeon.

  Good evenin, said Pigeon.

  They shook hands.

  Here John Batman interrupted the niceties. He addressed the prisoners. These fellows are of a different turn, he said, and as he motioned towards the black men the folds of his greatcoat flapped like canvas sails. They’ve had something of the wildness beaten out of them. Something, I say; not everything. Now the sort you shall encounter in the scrub hereabouts will not shake yer hand. My word. They are a people …

  He looked along the row of faces all fixed upon him and the wind blew as cold as river water funnelled through the foothills below the white cotton crown of Ben Lomond, and it set his eyes glistening. Here was a man speaking in deep passion, fullhearted, enjoining them to rise up in common cause. The lags watched him, trying to still their chattering teeth.

  A people who havent the smallest inclination towards layin down for us.

  From a pocket of his coat Batman produced a quart flask of Indian rum that ran thickly up the glass then resettled. He pulled the stopper as he repeated, Not the smallest, and threw back a swallow. The Governor is payin us to instil a lesson in the obtuse skulls of these dark skins. But I tell you this right now. It may be the blacks what do the instilling. It may be them affixing our bodies to the trees as you would the common criminal of old. I will offer no indemnity against that outcome. None whatsoever.

  Shoals of cloud glowed blood red on the horizon and the sun cast Batman tall and intense. The wind crashed in the blue gums along the hills and squalled down the valley. But the four men by the dray studied the ground in silence. From another pocket Batman produced a cake of negro head. He approached the assigned men and placed it in the palm of a fellow who grinned through his black beard and fixed Batman with his one good eye.

  You are a top sort, you are, he said to Batman. Look here, lads, we have some chew for ourselfs. He divided the cake four even ways. They rubbed loose the fibres and dipped a wad into the folds of their cheeks.

  As they chewed Batman spoke. There is among them a chief. A warrior. Some say witch. He is called Manalargena. If we dont kill this man we all need a floggin, I tell you. Mark him by his beard which he keeps dressed with ruddle. You must bring him down before all others.

  The men spat strings of juice on the ground, nodded their heads and mopped their chins, their eyes always upon Batman.

  Sergeant Bickle pointed at a line on the printed warrant. Make your mark here if you would, he said. It was a crumpled certificate he’d pulled from inside his coat and flattened out upon the bench of the horsecart. Batman read the thing over with narrowed eyes then carried the paper inside his house to sign his name to it. In that time Bickle put the new men to unloading from the dray sacks marked flour, tea, sugar and tobacco. In the low sun their shadows grew long and spidered, a procession of fairytale horrors shifting over the turf and all the while he goaded them with threats of a skinning at the end of his whip.

  Look here, Black Bill said to Batman as he returned with the warrant. They dont have shoes.

  Batman studied the bare feet slopping through the mud as they worked to unload. He raised his hat, smoothed back his hair and then resettled the hat neatly on his crown. He looked around at the overseer.

  Sergeant Bickle, where are their shoes?

  Dont recall I saw no shoes on the requisition.

  You what?

  I dont recall I—

  What use are the bastards without shoes?

  I done what I was ordered. Address your request to the Police Magistrate and he’ll dispatch em.

  Batman shook his head. That no-account wants a ball sendin through his bloody brains.

  Seems your crows dont need shoes. Bickle raised his gun at the Parramatta blacks and clicked his tongue. They glared at the soldier where he stood mocking them, their hands tight around the uprights and their jaws firmly set. A month ago the Dharug men had been walking the browned grasslands of New South Wales, but now their feet sank inch deep in the miserable damp of Van Diemen’s Land. They’d trod the August snow slurries and the mud and river marshes and felt the thorns of the pines through their soles and they would not be shod by anyone.

  Christ look at the boots on that bastard, said Bickle as he lowered his firearm. Black Bill had on a pair of boots cut in the fashion of a horseman and shined up fresh. The stitching was waxed and white against the boots and the leather had been polished with a lump of glass, much in the manner of saddle skirting, to give it a high gloss.

  He’s stolen them from somebody, said Bickle.

  John Batman looked him straight in the face. I tell you what. You get them off his feet and you can keep em.

  The overseer worked a spit cud around his mouth while he took stock of Black Bill from hat to heels, his hostile eyes betraying his opinion of what he saw there.

  You get them off his feet and I’ll call it quits on that money.
Call it square.

  Bickle nodded slackly, spat on the dirt.

  Go and show him some sport. He aint much.

  What is he? Six foot?

  Sixish. But he’s as untrained as the dog in the street.

  That’s as may be.

  A man of your history ought not to worry. I’ve seen you put down worse than him.

  Bickle never took his eyes off the black man where he was stationed upon the verandah. Quits, you say?

  My word on it.

  Aye. Well then.

  He removed his cap and shrugged off his regimental coat before he approached the farmhouse where the Vandemonian was waiting. Bickle’s rotten boots squelched over the ground; he dropped his cap on the mud and with a small motion of the fingers called Bill down.

  Black Bill was a big fellow. He dipped his head under the crossbeam as he stepped off the decking, his dark face shadowed beneath his hat brim. When he moved, the musculature beneath the gleam of his skin drew taut, the cords of his forearms like pulleys. He seemed ignorant or perhaps contemptuous of the sergeant’s intent for he never removed his hat. He waited there before the farmhouse a picture of calm. The assignees had caught on to the happenings Batman had stirred up and they dropped their loads, gathering near the dray to better see what might follow.

  The overseer called out. Come ere now, he said, and givem up. He raised his naked fists like some village pugilist calling men to take the ring for a shilling.

  Bill maintained his ground, raising one open hand. Watch yourself, was all he said.

  But the overseer closed that distance by skipping his feet to hold his stance correct. He lashed out with a right. Bill was up to the task. He moved his head and shuffled back and when the overseer came again faster he struck out with his fist. The strike sat the soldier on his hindquarters. He was up smartly but Bill was over him and snapped him straight to the face hard. The overseer staggered under the blow. He stepped back and drew a hand across his face. Blood messing the front of his filthy undershirt. Blood in his teeth like a fiend on the kill.

  You’re done for fucker, he said. From inside some disguised pocket of his coat he retrieved a little highland dirk and circled Bill with the blade outheld, bloody strings swinging from his chin. You miserable nigger, he said.

  The overseer feinted with the dirk and Bill pulled away. As he lunged again, Bill swayed back sinuously but the blade opened a gash in his shirt. He removed his hat and tossed it aside and his eyes were dark as coals. He assessed the overseer where he held position, dirk gripped for another pass. Warm blood spilled down the inside of his shirt. He said nothing. Instead he came forward with renewed precision, with a cold certainty about his every movement.

  The overseer watched him. Then he lunged, the blade passing near Bill’s chest and slicing back again but the Vandemonian timed his swing and caught the overseer across the chin with a punch that sent his head around brutally. He stumbled but held his feet. Already the swelling around his eye was growing blue and bulbous and he turned his head as if he was seeing his suroundings for the first time. Bill allowed him a moment to find what he could in the way of sense. The overseer looked around at the gathered men but no one spoke for a calloff. He spat out more blood and stepped closer.

  This time he made no feints but moved straight into attack. Bill grappled his arms and they fell, each clutching the other, the knife blade flashing. The Vandemonian caught a handful of hair and yanked back the overseer’s head, ramming his forehead into the soldier’s face. Bickle was put out cold in that instant and Bill rolled off him. He stood up, retrieved his hat and checked the cut on his ribs. From where he lay the overseer raised one hand and let it fall again onto the mud and he moaned and gagged.

  Black Bill came alongside him and John Batman also and together they raised him upright, those loosened eyes rolling about in their skull holes as he tottered to his feet. His lips and nose like broken fruit beneath his overgrowth of russet hair.

  That’s a goodun, Bill said to the overseer.

  He raised his head. A goodun? he said.

  Bill dipped his head towards the dirk.

  Aye, said Bickle. She cuts fair. Good Scottish steel that.

  Bickle’s bleeding mouth stumbled over his words. You cut?

  Not much, said Bill. He touched his chest.

  Those men who’d gathered in audience whispered between themselves and stared at the black man until John Batman waved them away.

  He’s flogged you like a rented mare.

  The overseer took up his knife where it lay on the grass and cleaned the blade on his forearm. He spoke to Batman without looking up. He made his case. I see now I was in error.

  Seems you still owe me though, dont it.

  You bloody scoundrel. You’ll have yer money.

  With that Bickle was gone back to the dray, coat in hand and rank with blood, and his junior climbed aboard also and they departed.

  The razor wind plying through the fields caused Bill to pinch up his eyes. In the far distance the sheep turned as if blown so by the winds and Bill sat a spell on the verandah watching the last of the sun. Every spring this wind bowled down from the hills, curling the trees over and setting the clouds skating out of the east. The clansfolk followed that salted breeze from the coast into the western hills where the snow dried before it and they harried the kangaroo herds of the lowland plains with their spears, their dogs. He held his cut chest and gazed up at the mountain. Their kind would soon have more than the wind for company.

  Batman appeared, cocked one boot up on the decking, leaned on his knee. Well, he pulled a blade. As you said he would.

  Bill looked up at him. He knows no better.

  Sharp little bastard it was too.

  In the quiet that followed they watched the dray haul away up the track with the wheel rims showering gobs of mud and the horse straining at the yoke.

  mina carney he mengana knife, he said to Batman.

  narapa, said Batman. mina tunapri.

  DAWN CREPT UP LIKE A SICKLY pale child. William Gould walked over the frosted ground to the stables and went man to man, nudging the assignees awake with the toe of his boot. He dropped a pile of clothing on the ground and stood by as the assignees stripped out of their slops. They pulled on the pants and undershirts and workshirts. A turned and mended coat was among the pile and the boy had hold of it but he was shoved off by the blackbeard who wrenched the coat onto his own back. Over everything they hung rawhide tunics stitched from an assortment of skins that shared little accord of colour or shape, and bound their feet in the castoff slops for want of shoes, glancing about at each other but saying nary a word against it.

  Outside in the sunshine Ben Lomond was a rise of crag and battlement white with silvered snow. The mountain’s shadow jagged across the fields but where sunlight fell, the frost glittered salty white. The assignees squinted as they took stock of the squares of land girdled by chock and log fences: the mix of bigboned mutton ewes and Bengal-cross cattle meant for their beef, the little shepherd huts smoking serenely against the morning sky. Likely to their eyes the whole of Kingston farm was a swath of order hacked out of chaos, a stamp of authority hammered into Van Diemen’s Land.

  But when Bill surveyed that grant he saw the ancient constructions of the Plindermairhemener, the precisely burned plains carved over generations to advantage the hunter, the lands called up anew with every footfall. He found John Batman working at his shambles. A ewe laid open at the throat was raised up by her hocks by a block and tackle. Batman leaned against her as he peeled the woollen skin away with a finely bladed knife which he stropped occasionally on a belt hung from the cross frame. The pooled blood beneath the ewe was flecked with ants and strands of her viscera hung from the stomach cavity. Black Bill held the ewe’s foreleg outwards as Batman sawed the shoulder, and as he bent the leg backwards against the joint the bones popped in the silence.

  Said Batman: You seen them smokes?

  I seen em.

  The
campfire smokes hung in the sky, long and white and bending in the winds, emanating from some deeply hidden quarter to the east of the mountain. Country known only by the clans that walked it.

  How far you reckon?

  Bill examined the luminous blue above the hills. Eight mile, he said. Ten.

  They wont wait for us.

  No, they wont.

  The foreleg came away under Batman’s knife and Bill moved it onto the butchering stand nearby. Batman towelled his arms clean. These reprobates will eat better than landed gentry by Christ.

  No sooner had he spoken than the men in question came towards them from the stables, led by William Gould. They made a miserable sight dressed out in furs and barefoot but for the rags bound and tied at their ankles. Gould had in his arms a collection of fowling pieces which he gave out to the assignees and they turned those pieces in survey. They were weapons worn by the passing of a thousand hands and of that selection not one was fit for any purpose more than culling sick animals. The rust had been filed back along the barrels, the stocks nailed up where the weather had split the grain, and they’d been slung off kangaroo-skin lanyards barely tanned and lined still with fur.

  John Batman looked along the rank. Your name?

  Jimmy Gumm.

  What?

  Jimmy Gumm, sir.

  You?

  It’s James Clarke, sir. Most calls me Horsehead, but.

  And you, Maypole?

  Howell Baxter, sir.

  Welshman are you?

  That I am, Mr. Batman.

  You shot a man before, Maypole?

  Not without call, Mr. Batman.

  Well you have call now.

  Baxter tapped his weapon. This here gun aint much good, he said.

  That particular piece had been restraightened under the blunt side of an axe and was now given to firing along a lunatic trajectory. He made to hand the damaged firearm back but Batman only stared at him.

  They’ll make fine sport without a gun. Fine sport.

  The assignee lowered his eyes and held the gun to his chest. Stood off aways was a boy of hardly gaoling age. He had his arms wrapped around himself against the cold and he scowled at the men and their business.