'She's killed Mad Dog Mulray!' one of them cried. 'Shot 'im through the 'eart!' the other shouted so as not to be outdone by his partner. One of them carried over his shoulder a bundle made from the opossum skin coat the wild man had worn. The second one now wore a set of military pistols in his belt and was waving Mary's pepperbox pistol which, in her state of shock, she had entirely and most foolishly forgotten to retrieve.
There was much excitement among the three remaining men and the oldest, a man who had earlier most formally introduced himself to Mary as Hindmarsh, looked up at her admiringly. Then the lad threw the skin bundle to the ground and untied it. Inside was the severed head of the wild man.
Mary gasped, though she was too shocked to scream, or perhaps there was no screaming left in her. She instinctively grabbed Hawk and placed her hands over his eyes.
'You 'ave done us a great service, Mary Abacus,' Hindmarsh said at last. 'He were a divil, a monster creature, the anti-Christ hisself. He's murdered seven of our forest folk.' He touched the severed head with the toe of his boot and then turned to the lad who had placed it at his feet. 'Tie it up again, Saul.' Then he laughed. 'It will make a grand Christmas present on the gate post o' the police station in Southport!'
One of the young men now handed the prisoner's purse to Hindmarsh, who examined it briefly and then looked up at Mary.
'This be your'n miss?' he asked. It was obvious to Mary that he well knew the nature of the object he held in his hands.
Mary nodded. 'In it be fifty pounds, it were money offered for the recovery o' me son,' she explained. 'The reward like.' She placed her hand on Hawk's shoulder.
The men surrounding her were rough and ready and now they laughed and looked at each other, their expressions plainly bemused. 'The nigger be your son?' Hindmarsh asked surprised, looking first at Mary and then into Hawk's dark and frightened face.
'Yes, mine!' Mary cried fiercely.
Hawk jumped at the tone of Mary's voice and the blanket slipped to his shoulders and now Hindmarsh and the others saw where the flesh was cut half an inch into the boy's neck to expose the bones. In other parts it was festered and suppurating and slabs of pink scar tissue had been laid down from earlier rope burns. 'Jaysus, Mary Mother o' Gawd!' Hindmarsh said. Then he handed the brass cylinder back to Mary.
'This is not ours to own,' he said.
'I be happy to pay it all, if you'll escort us back to the river where we has a boat,' Mary said.
'Yes we knows about that,' Hindmarsh said. 'It were not very well hid.' He smiled. 'We'll be after takin' you anyways, miss, you'll not be payin' us for that privilege!' He pointed to the horse and then the pistols in the young man's belt. '
'Orse and pistols, they be payment more'n enough.' He looked at the four younger men so that they might pay keener attention to what he was about to say. 'We owes you, Mary Abacus. You be a legend from now among the timber getters, accepted as one of our own kind and welcome to return at any time you wishes, even though I daresay you be a bloody Protestant!' He paused and then added with a grin, 'And so we won't be after makin' you a saint though you comes a bloody sight nearer than most I've 'eard o' what comes from Rome!'
Hawk spent long periods on his own on the mountain. It was as though he was eternally searching for Tommo, trying to recapture the essence of his brother. He soon regained the flesh on his bones and his neck healed well as young flesh does. Mary changed the label on the back of her Tomahawk beer to contain only Tommo's name and description, though all else remained.
Tomahawk Ale was now most famous in the colony and also in Melbourne and Sydney and it seemed almost the entire colony knew of the disappearance of Tommo. Mary never admitted it, but she secretly believed that Tommo was dead, though Hawk did not. Despite being repeatedly questioned in hand language by Ikey upon his return, Hawk could remember next to nothing of the kidnapping. The shock of the experience had completely erased his memory of the incident, but for the fact that they had not been captured by the wild man but by men who knew their names and had been most friendly.
Hawk continued with his studies and was seldom without a book in his hand. Always a serious child, he was now withdrawn and rarely smiled, though when he did, Mary would say, 'It's a smile that could brighten a dark room at midnight'. With the benefit of the hand language which Mary soon learned well, he was able to talk with her as well as Ikey and Jessamy, who had also learned the language. With others, provided they could read, he was able to write upon a slate which he carried on a string about his neck.
Ikey, fearing that Hawk's inability to talk might disadvantage him, spent more and more time with his adopted son. Hawk at ten was already working on the accounting books at the Potato Factory under Ikey's instructions. At thirteen he was most competent with a ledger and had developed a fair hand which Mary wished, when it matured, should be the most beautiful hand in the colony, and so she bought him the latest in handwriting manuals so that he might practise the perfection of his letters.
But Ikey feared that this was not enough and, without Mary's knowledge, he began to teach Hawk all the skills he knew. Hawk was too big in his frame to have ever been a pickpocket, but in all the other tricks of palming he became an expert. His large hands could conceal anything and there was not a card game he could not play or cheat at with great skill, though Ikey despaired of him for he would never cheat in a real game, but much preferred to win with his own wit and intellect. He taught Hawk how to 'christen' a watch, and how to recognise a forged banknote, of which there were a great many in circulation in Van Diemen's Land. Hawk also learned to lip read, even though his hearing was perfect. 'So you may read what a man says across a room or in a crowd,' Ikey explained. Conscious that he had been brought up by Mary to be honest in all his dealings, Hawk would sometimes ask Ikey why he should learn a certain skill.
'Bless you, my dear, it is not an honest world we live in and few can enjoy the luxury o' being entirely honest within it.' Ikey would cock his head to one side. 'Have you not noted that the expression most cherished by those who are rich is the term 'the honest poor'? They take much time to extol this virtue in those who have nothing, whereas there is no expression in our language which talks o' 'the honest rich'! Honesty, if it be truly earned, be, for the most part, the product o' poverty and occasionally, if it is practised by the rich, a characteristic of inherited wealth, though rare enough in even this circumstance!'
Ikey would warm to the subject. 'There is neither bread nor virtue in poverty but, because it be a necessity, for how else will the rich become rich if they do not have the poor to depend upon, it stands to reason that the rich must manufacture more poor if they are to grow more rich! The rich become rich by taking and the poor by giving. The rich take the labour o' the poor in return for a pittance calculated to make poor men near starve, so that they will fight each other for the privilege o' giving o' the labour the rich man depends upon!'
'But Mary be not like that, Ikey!' Hawk protested. 'There are none that starve who work at the Potato Factory!'
'Aye, Mary be different,' Ikey admitted. 'But you observe, she does not grow rich.'
'That be because she has no capital to buy the machinery she must have if she is to have a proper brewery!'
'Ha! Precisely and exactly and definitely and most certainly! My point precisely, my dear! If she should give the men less and not feed their brats… If she should employ children for tuppence a day and not men for a shilling, she might soon have the capital to expand.'
'I should not wish her to do that!' Hawk replied, his hands working furiously. 'Her conscience and mine would not allow it!'
'Conscience?' Ikey said, surprised, one eyebrow raised. 'That be a luxury you be most fortunate to afford, my dear! That be the single greatest gift and also the worst advantage Mary has given you.'
'Why then must I learn of these ways of yours?' Hawk asked.
'You mean the ways o' perfidy?'
Hawk nodded his head.
'The perfidious man be the normal you will come across in life. Everyone you will meet in business will seek advantage over you, my dear. So you must learn to recognise the cheat and the liar and unless you know the manner of his scam, the method of his ways o' doing you down, you will be beaten. If you knows how a man should cheat at cribbage you will call him early. To know the scam is to make sure it does not happen to you.' Ikey laughed. 'Ah, my dear Hawk, you do not have the character to be a liar and a cheat!' Ikey paused. 'My only wish is that I teach you enough o' the perfidy o' mankind to prevent you from being a fool.'
'You wish me to be hard but fair in my dealings?'
