Only Killers and Thieves(48)
Scowling, Tommy shook his head.
“It’s actually quite common. Scuttling surrounding land for the benefit of one’s own. Probably illegal, not that anybody cares.”
“We did. Daddy cared. We were getting by on bran mash by the end.”
“If I were a betting man, Tommy, I’d say your father was well aware.”
“He would never have allowed it.”
“You assume he had a say. He used to be John’s man, I believe. Quite a rise in fortunes over the years. There are always compromises to be made.”
“But . . . everything hangs on that river. Everything.”
“We never actually met, your father and I. Didn’t seem necessary when I was already working Broken Ridge, the two are one and the same. A spirited fellow, though, John says. Are you much like him, I wonder? How old did you say you are now?”
“Fifteen soon. I’m not sure what today is.”
“Twentieth.”
“Two days, then. Two days I’m fifteen.”
Noone spread his arms. “We shall celebrate. At fifteen you’re almost a man.”
“Why did you just tell me that? About the lake?”
“Seems to me you deserved to know. You noticed, at least, which is more than your brother did. And I rather like you. I think perhaps we can be friends.”
Tommy looked away, blinking. Clutched tight his bedroll.
“I see Rabbit’s also taken with you. The young trooper over there. A strange boy, very lonely, I think he might be retarded in some way. Apparently we killed his family and most of his tribe—we being whites, not me personally, you understand. Now it seems he craves our approval, which is a very fine trait in a recruit. Makes him obedient, loyal, but he’s a dangerous young man. I wouldn’t suggest you choose him for a friend out here.”
“I ain’t looking to make friends,” Tommy said.
“Good. That’s good. You were born with a suspicious mind. But no man is an island: you are never entirely alone. You still have your brother, but who else? John? I don’t think so, Tommy. John is not your friend. Taking your family’s water like that, not very neighborly of him, wouldn’t you say?” He wagged his finger back and forth, tutting in time with each pass. “The Bible tells us to love thy neighbor—do you read the Bible, Tommy? Do you follow the word of the Lord?”
“No. I don’t reckon he even exists.”
Noone’s gray eyes flared. “A boy of many talents. Bravo, Tommy. Bravo.”
Tommy felt himself flushing, tried to hide a rising smile.
“You don’t read the Bible neither?” he asked.
“On the contrary,” Noone said, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a tattered old book bound in a soft leather cover. He rifled the pages so Tommy could see. Half of them were missing, a stub of ragged paper torn along the spine.
“In fact, I read a page of this nonsense daily, gives me a bloody good laugh while I take my morning shit, then it does a fine job of wiping clean my hole.” Laughing, he raised his arms skyward. “Halle-bloody-lujah! Praise be to the Lord!”
His laughter died out and he lowered his arms and Tommy waited but Noone didn’t speak again. Tommy lay down slowly, pulled his bedroll to his chin. He was facing the fire this time, facing Noone. Through the quiver of the charcoal he saw him reach for the two pieces of wood he had trimmed, and fit one against the other to make a cross, which he then began binding with string.
Tommy soon fell asleep. Dreams of Father and of a lake—the first time he had dreamed of Father since. He was standing by the lake, looking out over its surface while from a distance Tommy called his name. Father didn’t turn. Tommy shouted louder but still he didn’t respond, unreachable at the water’s edge, lost, and Tommy shouting, shouting . . . until he woke panicked into daylight to find that the shouting belonged to Locke. He was raising hell in the camp, cursing and fighting with his bedroll. The cross that Noone had made last night was embedded in the ground, just above Locke’s head. His name had been carved upon it. His death foretold.
17
Midmorning they cleared the station boundary. There were no markings, no fence posts, but as they passed between a pair of bulbous bottle trees Sullivan drew a line with his finger across the ground.
“Here’s about where it ends, so the title says. I ain’t finished with it yet, though. You see them ranges yonder? Up to there’s my claim.”
He spoke for Billy’s benefit. All morning the two of them had ridden side by side, Tommy trailing just behind. He could hardly stand to listen to them talk, but there was nowhere else for him to be. Noone and the troopers were leading them now, the old man at the front of the line, while Locke skulked alone at the rear. He hadn’t said a word since waking that morning, when he’d tossed Noone’s crucifix onto the newly kindled fire and sat shivering with his tin cup cradled in his hands, moodily sipping bush tea.
The frontier crossing turned Tommy’s gut, their passing from settled land to wild. All his life he’d feared it, the uncharted west, looming like a shadow on the edge of their world. The center was filled with legends such as men like Burke and Wills, who had tried to cross the country and died along the way, or the everyday tales of vanished drovers and mysterious lost cattle mobs many thousand strong, swagmen blinded by sandy blight or sent mad by the bush. Sometimes they came to the house, asking for food or work, muttering darkly about the places they’d been, and Mother would take pity on them and allow them a meal and a night in the bunkhouse, then Father would chase them off come the dawn. Even in Bewley they weren’t welcome; Tommy had seen them raving in the street, staggering about like drunks. And yet always they went back there, into the nothingness that broke them, bewitched by it, entranced. That very same nothingness into which Tommy now rode. The empty swath of country on the surveyor’s map. The place where the lines ran out.