“Marree, eventually. Or I was, until these buggers spooked. Probably a snake what did it. Took off like they’d been bloodyshot.”
“How far is Marree?”
“Maybe another month, give or take, depends how quick they travel, and how the track holds up. That’s the Strzelecki I’m talkingabout, mind you. Not your Birdsville bloody Track. Shit, you boys really don’t have a clue.” He started chuckling then said,“Anyway, you fellas got names?”
Tommy had been waiting for this since they’d crossed those cattle stations a while back; the risk of boundary riders, of beingcaught. “Robert Thompson,” he told him, the name off the headstone in St. George. “Or Bobby, if you like.”
Kerrigan shook his hand. “Good to meet you, Bobby. What about your boy?”
After a pause Arthur said, “Arthur.” They didn’t shake hands, and Tommy didn’t correct the reference to boy.
“All right. So listen, how about we work out some terms?”
“For what?”
“Well, you two are about as lost as a snowflake in spring, but you know how to handle cattle, and I could use the help. Mymen all quit a while back, bunch of workshy bastards that they are, got spooked by the Strez like some do. So how about youwork your passage and I’ll see you to Marree, or any of the stations along the way. Tucker included. Provided we can findthem two mules.”
Tommy glanced at Arthur. A tiny shake of his head. Tommy said, “What’s to stop us just following you anyway?”
“Nothing, I suppose. Except that if you try to rob me I’ll shoot you, no worries about that.” He patted one of the revolverson his gun belt. “So unless you’re planning on eating rocks and dirt out there you might as well get yourselves fed. PlusI’ll pay you into the bargain. Twenty-five shillings a week, same as them other cunts, and I won’t ask any questions aboutwhat you’re really doing out here—that sound fair?”
“Fifty,” Tommy said. “Fifty a week.”
“State you’re in and you’re bartering.” Kerrigan chuckled. “You’ve got some nerve. All right, how about I throw in a pennya head for every one of these buggers we get loaded on the train. That’s between you, mind. You can split it however you like.Or I’ll point you in the direction of the Cooper and wave you both goodbye.”
Tommy leaned and shook on it, Arthur watching impassively as he did. “Good,” Kerrigan said as they parted. “Well, we’d bestget straight to it, else we’ll be hunting down them mules in the dark.”
He moved his horse away, ready to begin cutting the cattle out of their wheel. “I don’t like this,” Arthur said.
“He’s saving our lives here. Plus we’re getting paid.”
“We don’t know nothing about this bloke.”
“Neither does he. Wouldn’t anyway—what did you give your real name for?”
Arthur sniffed and spat and turned his horse around. “Mate, nobody gives a shit what the blackfella’s called.” And he tookup a position beside the mob.
Chapter 10
Billy McBride
Sunshine blanketed the homestead. A neat slab hut with well-kept storage barns and white sheets gleaming on the wash line.A barefoot woman shooed chooks while pegging out her husband’s damp shirts; blond-haired children played chase through theyard. At one of the outbuildings a man was working, replacing a section of weathered boards, a delay between each hammer swingand its sound reaching the crest of the hill on which the line of five riders stood.
Billy lowered the brass telescope, handed it back to Noone.
“You will guard the family,” Noone told him. “Restrain them, if you must. The rest of you to that big barn on the right there.That’s where our boy will be.”
Hannah Bennett was first to notice them. She dropped her peg bag and called to her husband but was muffled by his hammeringand the squeals of their girls. The children halted immediately. The panic in their mother’s voice. She told them to get insidethe house, shouted again, and only now did Drew Bennett turn: he saw his family fleeing, saw the horses descending the hillside.He locked eyes with Hannah, a long and fearful stare. She hurried after the children. Briefly, Drew’s head hung. He tossedthe hammer and went into the shed and emerged with a shotgun broken over his arm. He slid in the shells as he walked to themiddle of the yard, stationed himself between the riders and the house. Faces in the windows, watching him. Hannah in thecrack of the door.
Drew snapped the breech face closed, set his feet apart, shouldered the shotgun, and took aim. Down the barrel he sighted them: two blacks, three whites, one tall in the saddle, his longcoat flared like wings. Drew hesitated. The shotgun sagged in his hands. One of the white men began waving madly, yelling for Drew to lower the gun, and with a jolt he noticed that the blacks were in uniform, and realized who the tall man was.
Drew glanced at his family and laid the shotgun on the ground.
Three horses swept by him, made directly for the main barn; the tall man followed them at a walk, his head twisting, watchingDrew Bennett as he passed.
“Drew! Don’t! Easy now—don’t touch that gun!”
Drew scowled at the man shouting, dismounting his horse at a run. The face was familiar, the voice, but he couldn’t quiteplace him here, at his property, with these men. Panting, he stopped just a few yards away, his face flushed, his hand outstretched.
“Just . . . kick the shotty over, eh?”
Drew’s face unclouded. “You bring this mob to my house, Billy McBride?”
“They’re only here for the boy, nothing else.”
“I asked you a fucking question.”
“They were coming anyway. It was them that brung me.”
Drew’s face twisted. “What for?”
“Drew, mate—the shotty.”
He looked at the shotgun at his feet, as if wondering how it had got there. The others had dismounted and were watching fromthe barn.
“You know who they are?” Billy said. “Who he is? What he’ll do?”
“I’ve an idea, aye.”
“Then don’t be stupid about it. Christ, it’s only a black.”
Drew dragged his hand over his face. He kicked the shotgun to Billy; Billy opened it
