The Horse Who Bit a Bushranger (4 page)

Have you ever been alone? Truly alone? No other horses whinnying nearby; no thump of hoofs. No humans even, or kangaroos. Just by yourself. Alone.

I didn’t know if he would ever come again. I thought I might die there, of hunger and of thirst. But they were not the worst.

The worst was being alone.

I had been a king. Now I was nothing. A horse alone is nothing. Trapped inside this cage.

The night came. I shivered, but not from cold. Bats flew; an owl hooted somewhere near. Dawn came more slowly than I had ever known it to.

Red Beard walked up to me again. He flicked me with his whip. It stung my face, my back—only lightly, but I still shook, for I had done nothing to make him whip me.

He made me kneel. He mounted me again. This time I stayed still, and when he squeezed his knees together and pulled on the rope in my mouth, I stood up slowly.

He laughed. I was learning about humans now. I knew what a laugh was, and a whip. He whipped me on my sides and face, just to show he could, but lightly, to show me it could be worse.

Up and down and up and down. Finally he gave me water, though still no food. He wouldn’t even let me bend my head to take a bite of grass.

All day he made me obey his words and signals: up, down and halt. And then he let the ropes go, all but the ones about my face and tail, and began to lead me, out of the pen, this way and that.

I followed, my head down, obeying everything he said. What else could I do?

He led me out of the pen, into a bigger paddock. He held the ropes around my face in his hands. And then he clambered onto my back again.

I waited, feeling the roughness of his body against my skin. I waited till I felt he had relaxed.

And then I reared.

The whip lashed me, one side and then another, but I didn’t stop. I reared and bucked, over and over, ignoring the pain. My legs came down on the wooden rails, smashing the wood to splinters, hurting my knee. But still I reared and bucked. No pain was going to stop me now. No man was going to ride me.

And then I felt him slide. He gave a yell. All at once he was below me, trying to crawl free. I trampled on his legs, over and over. He rolled over toward the pen to get away from me, using his arms. I bent down and bit his arm. I tasted blood. I had never tasted that before. I rose again, onto my back legs, and yelled in triumph as he snarled at me.

I galloped about the paddock as he yelled for help.

At last I stopped. I was shaking, sweating. I knew the whip would come again. I had defeated Red Beard, but there were more men to hurt me.

Grey Beard came. He half-carried Red Beard away. Then he came back. He looked at me for a while, not speaking. He went away again. When he came back it was with water in a bucket, and something that smelt like grass after the summer has been dry.

He poked the bucket through the railings, and threw the dried grass in too. I sniffed, to see if it would hurt me, but it smelt good. I drank, and ate, and watched the man.

He watched me too.

‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘Didn’t think I’d see the day old Hogan would get his from a horse. Needed to be taken down a peg, that man. But what to do with you?’

I looked at him. Most horses wouldn’t look straight at a man. But I had been a king.

‘Could send you to the tallow house for boiling down for fat. Be a pity though, a horse like you. But Hogan says if he can’t break you, no one can. Ain’t no horse has ever trampled Hogan before.’

He chewed a shred of his beard, still watching me. I ate more of the dried grass.

‘Tell you what. I’ll keep you for a year. See how you go. Pay Hogan for his share. Let you in with the mares, too. Get a few good colts that way. Then in a year…’ He shrugged. ‘If you ain’t quietened down by then, if no one’s broke you in, I’ll sell you for whatever I can get. Sixpence to the tallow house or fifty guineas to some fool who thinks you can be broke.’

I watched him through the railings, and wondered if he would come close enough to bite.

The farm were just as he had left it.

There was the horse paddock, and the paddock where the sheep waited to be shorn, and the grassy flats that were left to cut for hay.

There were other cleared areas too, not fenced, one planted with potatoes, and one with corn, still too green for cobs. Two of the men had to sit up all night guarding the crop from the roos. Part of the creek flats were planted with pumpkins, big-leafed vines still without any fruit.

It was good to sleep with the noises of other people, in the big stone barracks where the men slept on last year’s musty hay.

Old Roman John didn’t sleep at the barracks—he had his own farm, a small one next to the Reverend Hassell’s, with a house on it and a wife. She kept to herself; none of the men had ever seen her. Most of the men here hadn’t spoken to a woman in years. Billy didn’t wonder that Mrs John stayed away.

The storeroom was stone too, with holes to fire through if the natives or bushrangers attacked. The cook shed was next to the storeroom, though most of the cooking was done on the fire outside by Cookie One Arm.

Cookie had two arms, but one was small and withered, and kept hidden under his shirt. He’d let Billy see it when the boy had complimented his stew, a mix of mutton and potatoes with watercress from the creek thrown in. Greens was good for you, said Cookie.

It were hard work, helping with the shearing. First the sheep had to be washed, running them back and forth through the creek to get rid of the worst of the dust and prickles from their fleece, then their bums and any ‘blown’ patches doused with tobacco water to kill the maggots that could eat into the sheep’s flesh, and spoil the wool as well.

Billy’s job was to haul the sheep one by one to the shearers, hooking them with his crook, then turning them on their rear ends so the shearers could get to the belly wool first. His arms ached after the first morning, his hands were blistered, and his back was on fire. There were bruises down his legs and on his arms where the rams had kicked him.

He wished he’d never see another ram in his life.

It were good though to see the blaggards held down proper by the shearers and rigorously clipped, leaving gashes to be covered with hot tar.

The shearers didn’t mix with the convicts, didn’t even talk to them much. Billy asked if they’d met Jem at Dargue’s place but they just grunted and shook their heads. The shearers had their own tents, and their own cook and rations too. Four of the shearers
were women, in long shirts and leather aprons, with their hair tied up in plaits under their hats. They were coarse-faced, giant women, twice Billy’s size and age, with beefy arms and their own strange lingo. But they were the first women Billy had seen in the country—the first he’d seen since he left Bristol, if you didn’t count the ragged natives and the wary mothers who had watched them as they passed through Sydney Town.

The women were good shearers, but. They’d brought the skill to the colony from Hanover, it seemed, and taught the other coves. Most of the women in the colony was married, but not these—or perhaps they were married, and still went shearing, for it were good money. They too kept to themselves, so there was no way to find out.

It took two weeks to turn the woolly sheep, grey as rocks and twice as stupid, into white shivering sheep, with red and black splodges where the blades had cut too deeply. The fleeces were pressed into big square bales.

Billy sat with his back against the stone wall of the barracks, spooning up his stew and letting the warmth seep into his sore muscles. Down past the barracks some of the other men had lit a fire, and were passing around a jug of rum. Old Cookie had a still, and brewed up grog from the potato peelings.

‘You’re not getting drunk with the others?’ Billy looked up. It was Roman John.

Billy shrugged. ‘Heard that two coves went blind after drinking Cookie’s rotgut. I like both me eyes. Besides, Cookie charges a penny a nip.’

‘Well, here’s your wages. How you spend them is
up to you. You know how to work, by the way,’ he added, holding a couple of coins out to him.

Billy took them automatically. They were strange-looking things with the centre cut out. ‘What’s these?’

Roman John gave one of his small smiles. ‘Holey dollars—we don’t have many proper coins out here, but these are legal enough. Worth about two pounds, lad.’

‘But why?’

‘Like I said, they’re wages.’ He saw that Billy didn’t understand. ‘Convicts work ten hours a day. Anything over that you get paid for. You get extra for the shearing, plus what you did out in the hut.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re lucky you’re on one of the Reverend’s places. A lot of farmers don’t keep to the law.’ He nodded at the coins. ‘Hide them in your boots, boy. That way no one can steal them.’

‘Thank you—’ began Billy. But Roman John had walked away.

He was tired, but too sore to sleep. Too much to think about too.

He had money now. And a pistol. He could steal one of the horses easy. He could find Jem.

Dargue’s place was at Parramatta…but where was Parramatta? He had a vague notion it were back over them mountains, but he had to make sure.

What if Jem had escaped already? They might never find each other. The colony were small but the land was big. They might be murdered by the natives, or struck by snakes…Billy thought of the bones out in the bush. Those could be his.

Suddenly he was aware of shadows moving on the wall opposite the barrack door. Someone must be outside with a lantern.

He stood up silently, and tiptoed out. A single lantern shone at one end of the horse paddock. A darker shadow moved around it.

Billy ducked under the wooden rails. A horse was lying on her side, straining, about to give birth if he were any judge, not that he’d ever seen it before. The darker shadow was Roman John.

‘She all right?’

The man shrugged. ‘This is her first. She’s flighty, and a bit young for it. Thought I’d sit with her.’

‘Can I sit too?’

Roman John looked up in surprise, the white of his eyes showing in the darkness. ‘If you want to.’

Billy sat by the horse’s head. She tossed it from side to side, then struggled as though she was trying to get up. Billy stretched out a hand automatically. ‘There ye are, girl. You’re a good girl. A lovely girl. Don’t ye be fretting yourself none, you hear, ye’ll have a fine foal soon.’

He knew the mare couldn’t understand him. But the words didn’t matter. It was the tone, the fact that someone was beside the animal in the darkness. Someone who cared.

The horse calmed down. A shudder ran through her again.

‘Ah,’ said Roman John. ‘It’s coming.’

They walked together down to the creek that ran through the corner of the paddock to wash the muck from their arms. Behind them the foal was already nudging at her mother for milk.

‘You were right,’ said Roman John at last. ‘You’re good with horses.’

Billy nodded. What else were there to say?

Roman John finished washing, but he didn’t make any move to head back to where his own horse waited, cropping the grass in the next paddock. At last he said, ‘You’re planning to make a bolt for it, aren’t you?’

Billy said nothing for a moment, then looked up. ‘Why not?’

Suddenly he couldn’t be bothered bein’ polite, like he’d lick the boots of any man with power over him. ‘Why shouldn’t I make a run for it? It’s all right for the likes of you. Born with money, a toffy voice and a farm and a wife and a job that pays you proper dosh, not just a few coins and a bowl of stew.’

Roman John laughed. It was the first time Billy had ever heard him laugh. ‘Me? I was a convict, same as you. But I wasn’t going to stay a convict. I saved my money. Changed the way I talked too. That’s what separates a convict from a gentleman—the way you talk, the way you dress. I talk like the Reverend Hassall, and I don’t dress like a wild man from the bush.’ He glanced over at Billy casually. ‘You could have the same as me. Save your money. Buy a farm.’ He nodded at the horse and her foal, heads together in the moonlight. ‘Breed your own horses.’

A farm of his own. A wife. Properly fenced paddocks with lots of horses. His horses. It was as though a dream had slapped him in the face.

‘I’d even recommend you for your ticket of leave,’ said Roman John lightly.

Billy knew what a ticket of leave was now. It meant that you were free, more or less. Still a convict, but free to take any job you wanted. Or buy a farm.

‘Why?’ Billy let all his suspicion into his voice.

‘Because I was like you. Because you can work hard. You’ve got a mind too, and determination. Not a single sheep was unaccounted for out there, even without anybody watching you. And you were right.’ He nodded at the mare and her foal. ‘You’ve got a gift with horses. Well, what do you say? Still planning to go bush? There’s nothing I can do to stop you,’ he added. ‘I won’t even try. Or do you want to stay here? Save? Work?’

It was impossible to think. His body felt battered from the day’s work. His mind felt shredded, as if someone had attacked it with a scythe. The years with Master Higgins, the workhouse, the ship, the journey here, the aching loneliness of the shepherd’s hut, and beyond it all some memories so clear, so beautiful he knew he had to shut them all away, or he might weep.

But I can cry, he thought, here in the darkness, the lamp away by the fence. Now, at last, he could weep.

Behind him he heard the mare whinny at her foal.

And the choice was clear.

‘Stay,’ said Billy.

Time passed. So did the birds: budgerigars in great green swarms above my head, Wonga pigeons pecking at grass seeds, keeping safely away from my hoofs. Parrots perched on the fence, and kookaburras nested in the hollows of the trees.

They were my only real companions now.

Sometimes other horses came, mares, mine for a few days till the men took them away. But I was just a strange stallion to them. I was no longer King.

Red Beard took me to the enclosure one more time. When he had finished I had great gashes all along my side. I felt the blood run cold when the breeze blew. I knew that the scabs would itch as they healed, even if I rolled on the grass to try to ease them.

That last time I bit Red Beard so badly on the arm that he screamed and screamed. I would have reared in triumph, but by then I was too dazed and sore.

He didn’t come again. I had beaten him.

Other men came. I kicked. I bit. Finally they left me alone too.

The frost left white whiskers on the wombat droppings. The grass orchids popped from the soil in spring. They tasted sweet, like the yam daisy tops.

And then men came with ropes; four men, with many ropes, and whips too. Four men to rope one horse, and lead him away.

We didn’t walk far. The sun was hardly high in the sky when we came to a big paddock. A paddock is a place where humans make the world into smaller places. This one had held many animals, for the ground was hard and bare.

There were other horses, and long railings to tether us to. A boy brought water in buckets; the other horses drank. The men who had brought me shook their heads when the boy came close. ‘Stay clear. He’ll bite you soon as look at you. Savage, this one is.’

The boy moved away. I shook my head, trying to tear away the tether. I tried to rear, to break free. The men nudged each other and nodded.

More men came. They gathered around the wooden railings of the paddock. A man started yelling, and the crowd grew silent. One by one the horses were untethered and led into the paddock. Then they were made to walk around and around.

I could hear the words, though none made any sense.

‘What am I bid for this fine animal? Did I hear ten pounds? Ten pounds it is. Do I hear eleven? Look at the head on her, pure Arab stock or near enough. Do I hear twelve…?’

One by one the other horses were claimed and led away.

At last they came to me.

I was tired then. Too thirsty to rear or bite. I let one man lead me into the paddock. The man began to yell.

‘Unbroken stallion. When have you seen a horse like this? Look at him, gentlemen! What am I bid for this fine beast?’

The sun flashed in my eyes. Suddenly the noise of the men, the yells, the smells, the strange bare place, were all too much. I tried to rear. For a moment the rope held me, then I managed to break free.

Men ran, and tried to grab my tether. I reared again, and gave a shout of challenge, and then they caught me. They pulled me down. The whip lashed at my skin.

I heard the loud man yell again. More yells, men and their noise and smells all around, strange horses, too much noise…

I pulled and reared, uncertain of anything except that I needed to be free.