Only Killers and Thieves(16)

He paused to tear off another bite of bread and cheese, talking as he chewed.

“After a while I got married, had a couple of littl’uns, then I heard about this other place offering blackfellas work. Real work, proper pay, none of the praying and rules. We wanted our own place, see, our own life. A cattleman he was, name of Cox—I rode down to find him, see if he’d put me on. Two weeks I was gone, then I came back for the missus and kids. Only . . . when I got there the Mission was empty, nobody about. The family, them German buggers, the cattle even, like they all just—”

He clicked his fingers, raised his eyes to the sky.

“There was marks on the ground showing what had gone on. No way of telling who was who. I reckoned a woman and kids might have got took, so I set out after ’em but it wasn’t no good. In the end I went back to the old mob again, found there was only a few of ’em left. It was a bad time, Tommy. I moved or I died. So I rode back to Cox and he set me on, worked a couple other runs after that. The last was for a bloke up John Sullivan’s way, north of there and east, they called it Denby Downs. Sullivan busted him. Took the run, the men, that’s how I came to be his. Then your old man brought me with him when he got this place. Every day I’m happy he did.”

Arthur went on eating. Tommy hadn’t known he was once married, or had children, hadn’t known any of the story other than he’d once worked with Father at Broken Ridge. He hadn’t even noticed his scars. It shamed him. They had talked together many times, and Arthur knew him probably better than anyone who wasn’t blood, but Tommy knew so little in return, hadn’t even wondered, in truth. Other than a few attempts at learning his age, it had never occurred to him to ask.

“So what are the scars for?” he asked now. “What do they mean?”

Arthur looked at him playfully. “What do you reckon they mean?”

“Joseph’s were different. Like notches, I thought. A tally, I don’t know.”

“They are,” Arthur said. He pointed at his various markings, counted them up. “That’s eleven men I’ve killed just here on my front.”

Tommy stared at him, horrified, then Arthur’s face broke into a grin. He laughed, slapped Tommy on the chest. “Stupid little bugger. They ain’t all that different to the things you lot write down. Your papers and all that—we just wear ours on our skin.”

Tommy was smiling shyly. He glanced at him and looked away.

Arthur said, “If you were a blackfella you’d be getting ’em soon. Means you can do things, get married, hunt, trade. Means you ain’t a boy no more, that’s all.”

“I thought . . .”

“I know what you thought. You whitefellas are all the same.”

They sat in silence awhile. Arthur finished his meal and folded the towel neatly into a square. “Ah, fuck it, eh, Tommy. Least we’re sitting here together, I’m still living after all these years. Better a bloody coward than hanging in some tree.”

“You’re not a coward.”

“You reckon? I seen them two blackfellas yesterday, same as Joseph did. Yes, they were his old mob but they could have been mine, and I still didn’t know how to feel. He did. He bloody knew. He wasn’t coming back here. Not me, though. Good old Arthur, follow what the boss says. And here I am, Tommy. Here I am still.”

Tommy took the towel from him. Pressed it flat between his hands.

“Daddy’s going to talk to him. Sullivan. Make him stop what’s going on.”

Arthur smiled knowingly, the smile between an adult and child. “Then you don’t know John Sullivan. Or your daddy even. There’s only one boss between ’em, and I’m sorry, Tommy, but it’s never been your old man.”

Tommy climbed to his feet and hesitated, like there was something still unsaid. He wanted to defend his father but couldn’t; Arthur’s words had been loaded with truth, not meant as some kind of slight. And Tommy knew so little. He was realizing that now. Three days ago the world had been one way, now it was twisted another way around. He couldn’t get his bearings. Didn’t know for certain where anyone stood. What he’d always taken as definite now felt flaky as the soil on the ground.

“Tell missus I said thanks.”

He blinked and looked at Arthur. “When will we see you?”

“When I’m needed. I ain’t going nowhere.”

Tommy turned sharply and rounded the corner of the bunkhouse. He jogged across the yard, back to the house, found Mother sweeping dust through the doorway, onto the porch. He came up the steps and handed her the folded towel.

“He alright up there?” she asked.

“He said to tell you thanks.”

“But he’s alright? What did he say to you?”

Tommy paused before he answered. “He said to tell you thanks.”





7



They ate their oats in the dark predawn, shivering by the fireside and squinting against sleep and the smoke belching into the room. Mother sat with them. Feeding up her men. She drank her tea slowly and watched them all eat, no one talking, a grim sense of ceremony in the air. Last meal. Last rites. Tommy went along with it, took his cues from the others, buried his excitement deep. Already Father seemed weary, Billy casual, though Tommy knew that was an act. Mustering wasn’t boring. This wasn’t a normal day. They wouldn’t see Mother or Mary, wouldn’t sleep in their own beds, wouldn’t sit around this table again, for the best part of a week.