Only Killers and Thieves(77)
He ate none of the food that was offered and sat apart from the rest of the group, cradling his wounded left hand. Both fingers hung by their tendons, a pulsing husk of blood and bone. He wasn’t the only one hurt. Rabbit had a gash in the side of his head and Mallee had been skewered in his side. He wadded the hole nonchalantly, packing it with grass and leaves; Locke retied his wounded arm in its sling. Tommy couldn’t look at them. He watched the sun rising round and golden in the east, distant birds flying across it, diving and climbing again. After the chill of the night, animals would be lazing in the warmth, and in towns and on stations were men and women who were not him and did not know him and gave no thought to him or his fingers or anything else he had done. Most likely greeting the day with a smile.
Tommy picked up a stone and threw it. “Fuck ’em,” he said.
He tramped through the dead and the dying, revolver raised, taking aim but never firing, his face expressionless now, bereft. A woman wandered by, her head already stoved, stroking the air with her hands. An old man hid in a tangle of emu bushes, whimpering through his fingers. Another man. And another. Barely noticeable who they were. A blur of bodies and of people running, wailing, crawling, and Tommy turning with the revolver extended as if trying to divine something there. “Tommy!” someone shouted. “No dissenters now, you hear?” It was Noone. He had an infant with him, dangling it by the leg. Tommy watched him, horrified. Noone began laughing. He tossed the child high into the air. It cartwheeled limb over limb, crunched when it hit the ground, and lay still. Noone glared at Tommy. He motioned toward him with one hand. Your turn, the hand said. So Tommy spun and found the nearest Kurrong lying facedown on the ground and emptied his revolver into her back, then looked again at Noone. He had his head tilted and was frowning, reckoning whether she was enough, while from across the killing field Billy raised a fist and called “Yes, Tommy!” and gave a triumphant cheer.
Now Billy came to sit beside him on the grassy bank, lowered himself wearily down. He saw Tommy’s injured hand and drew in air through his teeth.
“Fuck, look at that. Might be Pope can save them, but I don’t know how.”
Tommy hid the wounded hand in his lap, covered it with his good.
Billy said, “You get him? The cunt that did it?”
Tommy didn’t answer, turned away.
“They were game buggers, though,” Billy said breathlessly. “Put up more of a fight than I thought. Reckon I got about a dozen myself—saw you do that gin stone cold at the end. Proud of you, little brother. Knew you wouldn’t let us down.”
Tommy swung his good fist and connected flush with Billy’s eye. His nose gave and shifted with the blow. Billy fell sideways, then touched his nose softly and lunged. He wrestled Tommy into the mud. Blows rained down. Tommy fought back but pain ripped from his hand and through him, and all he could do was turtle up and cry for Billy to stop. It was a while before he did. Before voices broke in and Sullivan was there, hauling Billy away. Tommy clambered to his feet, pressed his hand into his armpit, doubled over with the pain. He screamed. One of the fingers had come all the way loose and lay like a discarded trophy in the mud.
“You fucking bastard!” he shouted. “You fucking cunt!”
Billy had his nose pinched and head back. “The hell d’you hit me for, then?”
“Look at ’em,” Sullivan announced, grinning. “Little buggers got such a taste for it they’re fighting their-bloody-selves.”
Tommy sat down on the bank beside Pope and the old man considered his wounded hand, then looked at Tommy gravely and shook his head. Tommy only stared. Silently, Pope met the stare. His face was sallow and filthy and scarred. A face that carried the sadness of all his years. How many massacres had the old man seen? How many had he taken part in? How many had he survived?
With a strip of fabric Pope tied the stub and injured finger together at the base, then he pointed north out of the crater and said, “Camp.” He thumped his hand flat into the opposite palm, edge first, mimicking a blade. Tommy’s eyes flared, but Pope shrugged and told him, “Two finger now or hand after—you choose.”
The horses were gathered and the last of the dogs chased off and the five women forced into neck chains. The pyre hummed with flies. The bodies were knotted and twisted so tightly together they seemed melted into one; only the infants were visible whole. Dozens of eyes staring out. Hands and feet poking through. Rabbit and Jarrah lit the bonfire and the gunpowder fizzled and cracked. The flames burned high and quick, then fell as they steadily took. Thick smoke rose. The two troopers rejoined the group, and Noone stood before them and congratulated them all on their work. He spoke of the service they had provided, to the colony, the Crown, the memory of Mr. and Mrs. McBride. In his search of the camp he’d found evidence of the outrage, he said, and heads nodded solemnly like this was true. Tommy cringed. Sickening to hear his name, the lie it now held, and would forever hold. The group disbanded. As they trudged up the slope with the horses, Rabbit paused and called down to the smoldering pyre: “One-two-three in name of Queen surrender,” and thick laughter rang out from the men. They walked out of the crater and onto the plain, where they mounted their horses and made for their camp in the rocks, the women chained behind, shuffling through the dirt.
Kala was in the clearing, a hundred yards from camp. Her wrists were still bound to her ankles but she had managed to roll all that way. When she heard the horses coming she raised her head and turned another frantic few rolls. Noone himself went to fetch her. He slung her like a grain sack onto the saddle of his horse and walked her back to the rocks. The group dismounted and saw to their kit, then went into camp and sat down. Noone gave them an hour to rest. Locke and Sullivan slept. Billy smoked a cigarette and stared madly about, his leg jigging up and down and his eyes never still. There was a frisson of excitement in how the troopers talked, but their chatter soon faded and only the women could be heard. They were seated in a circle in the middle of camp, the chains still looped around their necks. Sobbing together quietly. A low and mournful wail. When the time came to leave, they were strung out behind the horses and led east toward the ranges and the settled colony beyond, while behind them in the distance a thick, dark column of smoke rose from the crater that had once been their home, visible for many miles around, if only there were eyes to see it.