A Changing Land(147)

Lee cut away the bloody cloth so that Hamish’s thigh lay like a beached yellow belly on the pale sand of the sheets. Poking a bony finger at the sodden material, he began to wipe away the blood from around the wound. The stench of rotting flesh was overbearing.

‘What do you think?’ Luke leant over him.

Lee muttered something indecipherable, wringing out the cloth. The water in the bowl turned a dirty red. Hamish’s entire leg was covered in congealed blood while fresh blood seeped steadily from the wound. Lee picked at two small maggots inching their way up Hamish’s thigh.

‘Jesus,’ Luke turned to the open window and took two deep breaths.

Finally Lee spoke. ‘How long wounded?’

‘Sometime last night.’ The shadows were lengthening, stretching their way through the bush like a long yawn. ‘Can you save him, Lee?’

Lee clucked his tongue and continued his probing. ‘Very much blood lost.’

‘But can you save him?’

A trickle of yellow pus seeped from the wound and curved down Hamish’s thigh. Lee poked at Hamish’s cheek. The skin was dry. ‘He must drink water.’ Lee opened the bedroom door. ‘You get him sit up and drink water. I get herbs.’

In the hallway Angus waited. Luke beckoned him in and Angus rushed to his father’s side; Claire took Hamish’s hand, gave it a squeeze and then sat quietly on a high-backed chair. Luke lifted a glass of water to his father’s lips, forced some into his mouth, the liquid dribbling down his chin. ‘How can I give him the blasted water if he won’t wake up?’

Claire took a clean rag from the bundle near the basin and soaked it in the glass. ‘Help me sit him up a little.’ They lifted Hamish and propped another pillow behind his back, watching as Claire gently opened his mouth and squeezed water onto his tongue. ‘It is better than nothing,’ she assured them.

Lee returned with a green-tinged poultice that he pushed deep into the wound, layering it over the top and binding it with narrow strips of rag.

Angus reached out a hand and rested it on Lee’s shoulder. ‘Can you save my father?’

‘I will try,’ Lee sniffed.

Mrs Stackland appeared with steaming water. Into it Lee mixed various herbs that he retrieved from the pockets of his tunic, stirring the concoction with a long yellow fingernail. Luke turned up his nose at the stink of it.

‘I cannot say if he will last,’ Lee admitted as he held the stinking brew under Hamish’s nose. ‘Very much blood gone and the flesh is going bad. Maybe if younger …’

Hamish woke, coughing at the steaming concoction. Before he could attempt speech Lee managed to get most of the contents down his throat.

‘Vely good,’ Lee grinned.

Hamish pushed the bowl away weakly. ‘Tastes like shit,’ he growled softly. He eyes looked groggily about the room. ‘Take me outside, Luke.’

‘No, Hamish, you are too ill,’ Claire protested.

‘Luke?’

Between them Luke and Lee half-dragged and half-carried Hamish out onto the verandah. They sat him down gently, placing his legs on a wicker chair. Hamish stared at the evening star risen above the hedge and remembered the stars so very long ago that had guided him to Australia and then from the goldfields northwards. ‘Sit,’ he waved his hand tiredly as, one by one, Luke, Angus and Claire sat in a half-circle around him. ‘You too, old friend.’ Hamish extended his hand to Lee. ‘You too. You must forget about what has happened,’ he said through stilted breaths. ‘Purchase Crawford’s block and change the name of it to Boxer’s Plains.’

Luke nodded.

‘You are the custodians of Wangallon now. You must protect her, honour her for she has fed you and clothed you and honoured you by demanding your tenacity. Wangallon is the home of the Gordons in this new country and you must fight to keep her. You are all a part of her future as I am now of her past. Don’t desert her,’ he looked at Claire for a long moment. ‘Don’t resent her. Luke and Angus, you most of all must love her. Love her like a man has loved no other and marry well.’ Hamish clutched at Angus’s arms. ‘Until you marry and produce an heir you are the very last of us.’

Angus touched his leg. ‘But Father –’

‘Protect her with your life, as I have done. Protect the right of the Gordons to be treated as equals in a new land and look after those who have died and lay buried within her soil, for they have earned your respect.’ Hamish held out his hand to Claire. ‘If I have loved this land too much –’ his fingers squeezed hers – ‘forgive me.’