Only Killers and Thieves Read online

  The dogs ran toward them as the boys crossed the yard. Red and Blue were heelers, a kelpie-dingo cross bred for the scrubs, and excited to be working despite working every day. Tommy scratched Blue’s ear and patted his flank. Red circled Billy impatiently, hoping for the same.

  “Where’s the others at?” Billy asked Arthur.

  “Sheds,” he replied, nodding in that direction, flicking tangles of gray hair. The gray had crept into his beard too, but hadn’t taken it yet, the beard a thick black slab reaching down to his chest. He was still smiling, his laughter slow to fade, the skin creased in heavy folds around his nose and eyes. One of his front teeth was missing: Arthur had grown up the old way.

  “Heard you youngfellas got lost yesterday. Best stay close out there, I reckon. Big old place them scrubs. Dangerous country for two lost boys.”

  Tommy smirked, but Billy snapped, “We was hunting, not lost.”

  “Well,” Arthur said, sorting through the various sets of reins and offering one to Billy, “your old man wants you on Jess anyhow, stop you wandering off.”

  Billy scowled at the packhorse, heavily laden with supplies. Feed bags, water bags, lifting ropes, dog muzzles, even the billycan for their tea. Jess had a put-upon expression well suited to her trade, and for all the world seemed to return Billy’s scowl; the horse looked just as unenthusiastic about their pairing as he.

  “Joseph can take her. I’ll ride Annie.”

  “Boss says Joseph’s on Annie today.”

  “Beau, then.”

  Arthur began chuckling. He shook his head. “Your brother’s on Beau. It’s Jess or nothing for you, except maybe a bloody long walk.”

  Tommy mounted up quickly, before Arthur changed his mind. Beau was a dun-gray gelding he preferred over all the rest. Other than Buck, the brumby Father broke and would let no one else ride, the horses were generally shared. But everyone had their favorite, and being the new boy Joseph was usually given Jess. Billy was still complaining as he took hold of her reins, the packhorse standing sullen as a mule. He mounted her roughly. Jess stepped and flicked her head but Billy brought her round hard and she settled soon enough. She wasn’t the type that needed romancing; small mercies at least.

  Arthur mounted up too, and together they sat waiting, until Father and Joseph came out from the store shed, Joseph carrying the last of the supplies. As he secured them onto the pack saddle, Father stood between Tommy and Billy and held up the flask of strychnine powder for both of them to see.

  “Don’t touch this,” he said, more to Tommy than Billy, it seemed.

  “I know that,” Tommy said.

  “Well, I’m telling you again: don’t touch it.”

  “Alright, but I know.”

  Father wedged the flask into his saddlebag, buckled the strap, mounted up, and they waited for Joseph to finish loading, all of them watching him, this new man in their little crew. He had short hair, no beard, and looked barely out of his teens. Tommy didn’t fully trust him yet, had hardly ever heard him speak. Three months he’d been at Glendale and he’d barely said a word, not to the family at least. Mother thought him surly, she’d said so more than once, and Father didn’t disagree—he’d only taken him on because Reg Guthrie quit for the diggings and he couldn’t afford another white man’s wage in a drought. Arthur’s opinion had swung it; he’d decided Joseph was alright. That was enough for Father. For all of them, in truth.

  Joseph finished packing and mounted up. Father whistled for the dogs and they rode out, heading north and then west, empty country to the horizon, and for many miles beyond.

  * * *

  Midmorning they found their first carcass. The dogs stopped their weaving through the spinifex and pointed themselves stiffly at the scrub. Steadily the five horses approached, no faster than walking pace in this heat. There was no shade, no respite from the sun, the wind only made it worse. All of them were sweating. Dark stains on their shirt backs, faces glistening beneath the brim of each hat. Joseph had his shirt open, and the sweat stood in beads on the scars that climbed ladderlike up his chest. Tommy couldn’t stop staring at them, couldn’t help but guess what those scars meant. They looked like notches: a tally carved into the skin. The thought chilled him. He counted four scars—did that mean four men? And what about those troopers yesterday? How many must they have had? Were their torsos, their entire bodies, riddled with marks?

  Tommy was pulled out of himself by Father swinging down from his horse, handing off his reins to Arthur, and walking toward the dogs. Flies hung over the clutch of scrub in a rolling dark cloud, diving and lifting and diving again. The dogs yapped, then fell still. The others waited. Wafts of spoiled meat carried on the air. Tommy took off his hat, wiped himself down, swatted the flies. He glanced at Billy, looking miserable on Jess—Tommy knew how her gait would be hurting his backside; there was no pleasure in riding that horse. He offered what was meant as a conciliatory smile. Billy snorted and looked away.

  With his sleeve covering his mouth, Father leaned over the carcass like a man over a ledge, then came back shaking his head.

  “No good. Maggots are already in there. Must be three days old at least.”

  Arthur handed back his reins. “Dingos get into her yet?”

  “Aye,” Father said. He mounted up and took the notebook from his shirt pocket, licked the tip of the pencil and made a mark.

  “Not blackfellas, though?” Arthur asked him.

  “Nope. Drought. Which is something, I suppose.”

  They moved on. Tommy looked at the cow as they passed. She was sprawled on her side in the dirt, hide hacked open, innards dragged out. There were pockmarks in her skin from the eagles and crows, and both eyes were gone. Flies lay upon her like a newly grown pelt; as one they rose when the horses went by, a shadowlike swarm hanging, then descending again as soon as the party was clear.

  The next carcass was more recent, not yet a day old. Father inspected it, then came back and unbuckled the strychnine flask from his saddlebag.

  “You two muzzle the dogs. Joseph, open her up.”

  The young stockman frowned at the instruction. Arthur explained, mimicking a blade with his hand, pointing at the cow and the flask Father held. Joseph shook his head. He turned and stared off into the scrub and Arthur reached out and slapped him on the arm, but Joseph didn’t respond.

  “Problem?” Father asked.

  “Might be,” Arthur said, glaring at Joseph as he fidgeted on his horse. This wasn’t the first time he’d been like this. Tommy remembered him refusing to shift grain sacks, not long after he was first set on, claimed they were too heavy to lift. There’d been days he’d missed the sunup, gone off wandering and come back hours late, then whenever Father got into him, Joseph would just stand there and take it, not a word in return, like it was nothing to him, like he didn’t care. He had a long and empty stare that slid right off you, but there was always something brooding in him. Mostly against Father. The two of them had been at odds from the start.

  “Bloody hell, Arthur, will you just tell him.”

  Arthur drew his bowie knife and offered it hilt first. Joseph glanced at the knife, then away. Arthur said, “Well, I ain’t bloody doing it, and he’s not gonna ask the boys. So it’s either you or the cow, mate—which’ll it be?”

  Joseph chewed on his tongue, then reached out and took the knife. They all dismounted. Joseph threw Father a look as he went by. Father shook his head and went after him, directed where to make the cut. Joseph lifted the hind legs, sawed the carcass sternum to tail; the innards came sluicing out. Joseph stood aside, holding the knife, blood coating his forearms, and Tommy found himself counting the scars on his chest again.

  “Tommy! Wake up, son!”

  Father was unscrewing the strychnine. Tommy took a muzzle from Billy, caught hold of Red and pinned him between his knees, wrestled the muzzle on. Red didn’t like it but knew what to expect: both dogs had been with the family since they were pups. Tommy tied the buckle and held Red back,
Billy did the same with Blue, all of them upwind of the cow. Father motioned for Joseph to lift the hide, and when he did so, Father tipped in the powder, then quickly jumped away. Joseph let the belly flap closed, walked back to his horse. Already the flies were gathering—the dingos would soon catch the scent. But strychnine was totally odorless: before they knew what they’d eaten, they’d be dead.

  They poisoned two other carcasses as they rode across that featureless scrubland broken only by lonely gum trees or thin pockets of brigalow, all of it drenched in a hard and endless sun. There was a gentle incline to the landscape, sloping down toward the distant creek, and from here they could just about glimpse the ranges in the west; a low, dark outline crouched upon the horizon like a storm cloud touching the earth. It was a week’s ride to those ranges, across unsettled country where few men had ever been, no telling what lay beyond. Father had a surveyor’s map showing their selection and the surrounding land, everything to the north, south, or east. The lines went only so far west, then faded into nothingness; the interior blank, like some vast uncharted sea.

  The cattle they found wandering loose needed droving back down to the creek. Father and Arthur mustered them easily, one on each side, their horses positioned just so, walking them slowly forward, everything nice and calm. Tommy was always impressed by how simple it looked, when he knew it was anything but. Small details. Mostly reading the cattle, Father said. The last few years Tommy had been allowed to go out with the men on the main spring muster, but he’d done little more than make the tea and cook. That was how everyone started, Father had told him. That was how you learned.

  Some of the cattle they found simply lying in the scrub, too weak and exhausted to stand. The dogs nipped around them, but even then they wouldn’t move: gaunt, with their legs tucked beneath them and tongues lolling, moaning pitifully when the horses came into view, might as well have been waiting to die.

  “She’ll need lifting,” Father said, when they came across the first. He nodded at Tommy and Billy. “On you go, then, get her up. Billy’s got the sling.”

  They looked at each other. “Just us two?” Tommy asked.

  “Aye, just you two. Or did you reckon I’d forgotten about yesterday?”

  “She’s only a littl’un,” Arthur said. “Doubt she weighs much more than you.”

  Arthur was laughing as Tommy climbed down. He’d helped lift cattle before but never done it on his own. He walked around to join Billy, who was unstrapping the harness from his pack, a homemade sling of stained canvas with thin ropes through metal eyelets in each corner of the sheet.

  “You know how to do this?” Tommy whispered.

  “Course I do. So do you. Come on.”

  They spread the sling on the ground beside the cow, Billy at the hindquarters, Tommy at the head, and worked it under her body with the ropes. The cow watched them warily, grumbling and shifting as they dragged the sling through. Tommy stood back, panting, but Billy was already passing his end of the harness back over the cow and tying off the ropes to pull it snug. Tommy copied him, glancing up at Father, who stared impassively down.

  “I didn’t ask you to dress her, Tommy. Lift the bloody thing!”

  They got a grip on the ropes and began pulling. The cow didn’t so much as flinch. Tommy’s hands slipped on the rope, his palms burned on the weave. Billy was struggling just the same; he wrapped the rope around his forearm, Tommy did likewise, both of them grunting and cursing, their boots sliding backward in the dirt. And still the cow didn’t move.

  Tommy turned his back on her, hooked the rope over his shoulder like a horse pulling a dray. He lost his hat. The sun stung his eyes, sweat soaked his face, his hands were burning, and somewhere the dogs were barking, then suddenly Arthur was shouting, “Yes, boys! Lift her! Yes!” and there was movement behind them, the cow inching sideways through the dirt. Tommy glanced over his shoulder and saw her rock herself forward, then the hind legs straightened and she was tottering unsteadily to her feet. He dropped the rope and collapsed. Billy began cheering, Arthur too; even Father smiled. The boys untied the harness and the dogs got into the cow, making sure she kept her feet, and Tommy and Billy came together in a clumsy half embrace.

  “Alright, that’ll do,” Father said. “Get it rolled and packed away. I doubt we’re done with it yet.”

  They all took the ropes for the next one, and three more after that, and by the time they reached the creek they were driving two dozen head back into the main mob. If it could be called a mob: a smattering of moaning cattle strung out across the floodplain, desperately foraging for feed. The grain sacks piled on Jess were emptied in the troughs, but there was only so much grain to go around. Father watched the cattle bitterly. A kind of hatred in his eyes. Blaming them, almost. As if what had become of them was somehow their own fault.

  The group took lunch by the creek, in the shade of the red gums that grew along its banks. Salted beef, bread and butter, but it was too hot for tea and there was no sense risking a fire. Bush this dry was like tinder. One spark and it went up.

  After they’d eaten, they lay on the bank while the horses took a spell, and soon there were sounds of light snoring as one or another slept. Tommy lay looking up at the leaves, listening to the trickling creek and remembering the rains they used to get when he was young. When the flow became a torrent and the whole floodplain drowned—they’d have been six feet underwater, lying on this bank. Miles downstream, there was a waterhole called Wallabys, where the family went in the summertime to bathe. The river fed a waterfall spouting directly from the rock face, and the pool was often deep enough to dive. He wasn’t much of a swimmer, but he’d loved it, the feeling of plunging into that pool, Mother clapping each dive from the side. How many years since they’d been there? When was the last time he swam?

  Tommy rolled his head toward Father, sitting along the bank, his notebook open in his lap, staring across the creek. The land on the other side belonged to Sullivan: the creek marked the western boundary of Glendale. Father noticed Tommy watching, closed the notebook, put it away.

  “I’ll bet you’re bushed after all that?” he asked him.

  “I’m alright,” Tommy said. “Hands are a bit sore.”

  “You did well. I didn’t reckon you’d lift her.”

  “Showed you, then, didn’t we?” Tommy said, smiling. Father smiled too. There was a pause, then Tommy asked him, “So how bad is it? How many we lost?”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it. Couple of dozen, that’s all.”

  “Feels like more.”

  “Is that right now?”

  “There’s no grass. How long have they got?”

  Father sighed and looked at the creek. “They’ve got long enough.”

  Billy was lying on Tommy’s other side. He rose onto his elbow and called, “I’ll bet John Sullivan’s got plenty fodder. Grass to spare up there.”

  “I’ll bet you’re probably right,” Father said.

  “So why not ask if we can graze them? Only till the sales come round, and if he wants something for it we’ll pay him out of the take.”

  Father snorted bitterly. “Like he doesn’t get enough.”

  “Still, it’s better for us than if the whole mob starves.”

  “The answer’s no, Billy.”

  “Can’t hurt at least to ask him.”

  “Yes it can. The answer’s no.”

  Father rocked himself forward and groaned as he climbed to his feet. He nudged Arthur and Joseph awake with his boot cap, then went to where the horses were tied in the trees. The group rose wearily, gathered up their things, and followed. As they walked, Tommy leaned close to Billy and whispered, “How would you know about Sullivan’s paddocks if we never went past them blue gums?”

  Billy shrugged. “I’ll say I was only guessing. You saw what he has, though. Imagine the take if we got them fattened up first.”

  “He won’t ask him. You won’t change his mind.”

  “I know. Man’s more stubborn
than that bloody packhorse. My arse is on fire, Tommy. I’ll be lucky if I can sit down for a week!”

  Tommy was still laughing as he walked Beau out of the trees. The group made its way upstream, northwest, into the far corner of the selection, the mob thinning out the farther north they rode, their painful moans of hunger replaced by the silence of the bush, only the whisper of the horses and dogs through the scrub and the rustle of leaves in the wind.

  “Hey,” Tommy said to his brother. “Remember Wallabys?”

  “Wallabys—too right.”

  “Reckon we’ll ever get back there?”

  “Not anytime soon.”

  “Good, though.”

  “Yeah,” Billy said, nodding. “Yeah, it was.”

  They’d been riding two miles upstream when the dogs stopped gamboling and pointed themselves at the creek. Both let go a series of short warning barks, then fell silent as behind them the party bunched to a halt, warily studying the trees.

  “What is it?” Tommy asked. “What they seen?”

  “Quiet,” Father snapped.

  Arthur leaned toward him in the saddle. “Probably just smelled another dead bugger. Might be one drowned in the creek.”

  Tommy could smell nothing different. Heat, sweat, horse. He thought he could hear flies buzzing, but flies gathered everywhere out here. He glanced behind at the open grasslands and the scrub swaying gently in the breeze. His damp shirt rippled. He cleared his nose and spat. Father was hunched over in the saddle now, craning for a view through the trees. Very slowly he straightened. He reached out an arm, appealing for quiet, for calm, then his other hand went for his carbine: he shouldered the stock and took aim at the creek.

  Tommy scrambled for his rifle. It was strapped across his back and he struggled to bring it round. Billy and Arthur trained their weapons blindly at the trees, while Joseph sat unarmed and motionless on his horse. Tommy got his rifle down and roved it along the tree line, his breathing quick and panicked, his eyes very wide, but there was nothing in the branches that he could see. Fragments of sunlight glinting on the water. The leaves fluttering in the breeze.