Blood in the Dust Read online

  Contents

  The Colony of Victoria, Australia, 1853

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This book is for my mother and father, Joan and Robert Swiggs

  The Colony of Victoria, Australia, 1853

  The two boys came up along the spine of the spur where the last of the cleared land gave way to verdant bush. The older one carried the musket slung over his left shoulder and plodded along behind his brother who was armed with a long spear that he used to probe at the ground as they walked. On a patch of dirt among the dried grass he found what they were looking for.

  ‘Here, Toby! He came this way.’

  Toby O’Rourke squatted in the shadowed undergrowth and traced his fingers around the paw print. The marks left by the dog’s claws were plain to see and Toby lifted his face in the direction the animal had gone, towards the rocky ridges below the first sweeping rise of the escarpment. He had been afraid of that, even though he suspected it all along.

  ‘What do you reckon, Pad? Is this the bugger?’

  ‘Could be,’ Paddy murmured, glancing down for a moment. ‘It’s big enough to be him. Got a lair up among those rocks, I reckon.’ He shifted the spear to his other hand as he spoke and looked to where the backbone of the ranges stood against a perfect sky.

  Toby nodded and looked at the print again. Here in the shadows the dirt still held moisture from the night dew, but the edges of the print had dried enough to crack and crumble. He pressed his thumb into the soil and studied the outline it left, comparing it with the one left by the dingo.

  ‘About three hours ago. We haven’t come across any feathers since the chook pen. He’s headed home for sure.’ He stood and followed his brother’s gaze, the Lovell musket heavy in his hand. ‘Once he gets onto rocky ground it won’t be easy to track him.’

  ‘Ma will throw a blue fit if he gets any more of her chooks,’ Paddy said. ‘This is the fifth time this month he’s raided the pen.’

  ‘He’s got a taste for chicken all right,’ Toby agreed. He shouldered the musket and pointed uphill. ‘Lead the way, Pad.’

  Paddy moved off into the bush, his long spear held at the ready. Toby followed his brother’s back and neither spoke for almost an hour, not until they had climbed to within fifty paces of the ridge line. Here, the bushland thinned out and a group of tumbledown boulders, as large as cottages, sat in the warm sun. Paddy stopped in the shade of one of the boulders and took the canteen from around his neck. He drank thirstily and then handed it to his brother.

  Toby took several mouthfuls and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘He must have come this way. Let’s scout about a bit and see if we can pick up his spoor between the boulders.’ He handed the canteen back to Paddy.

  ‘Toby?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Paddy pointed at the Lovell in his brother’s hand. ‘If we corner the bugger, do you think I could take the shot?’

  Toby shook his head. ‘You know how Pa feels about you using the Lovell. I wasn’t allowed to touch it until I turned sixteen.’

  ‘I’ll be sixteen in a couple of months,’ Paddy shot back. ‘It’s time I started learning how to shoot.’

  ‘More like eight months. If Pa found out he’d skin us alive. It’s one of his strictest rules.’

  Paddy looked down at the ground, pouting. ‘You’ve been using the gun for three years now and all I get is a spear. It’s not fair.’

  ‘But you’re good with a spear, Paddy. Better than I ever was. We have to find the dingo before anyone gets to have a go at him anyway – with spear or gun.’

  ‘Fine,’ Paddy said. He shouldered his spear and moved away between the boulders.

  Toby watched him go and shook his head, then turned to explore the ground in the opposite direction. He hadn’t gone more than five paces before a low whistle stopped him. Turning, he doubled back and found his brother crouched between two rocks.

  ‘This is the mongrel.’ Paddy pointed at several paw prints in the dust between the boulders. Then he lifted a white feather from the ground and waved it under Toby’s nose.

  ‘He still has the chook in his mouth. I think you’re right about his lair, Pad. Better let me take the lead.’ Toby pulled the musket’s hammer to full cock and moved off.

  The tracks followed a well-worn path between the boulders, heading high along the ridge. They disappeared on rocky ground near the top, but Toby crossed the stony patch and found another print on the far side of the ridge. Here, the dingo had changed direction, traversing the high ground to their right.

  Without ever really knowing how, Toby felt they were close to their quarry. He turned and held a finger to his lips. Paddy gave a curt nod and Toby started forward again, travelling more slowly, mindful of where he put his feet.

  The backbone of the ridge ended abruptly at a twenty-foot drop. Fifty paces away it rose again in a series of giant steps and continued on. Toby looked down into the space between, into a mess of boulders and stunted vegetation. The dog had somehow found its way down and as Toby started to look for a way to do likewise, Paddy tapped his shoulder and pointed. Toby followed the direction of his finger and saw a small patch of vivid white, out of place amongst the earthy tones of granite and bushland. It took him a moment before he realised it was a mess of white feathers, the remains of his mother’s chicken. Next to it was a flash of yellow and he could see the dingo, almost blending into the background. The dog stood in the shadow of an overhanging boulder, head held high as it sniffed the air. Paddy’s fingers dug deep into Toby’s shoulder.

  As slowly as possible, Toby raised the Lovell and took aim. The dingo moved, turned, sniffed the wind. It sensed danger, but the boys were downwind and their scent had not carried to the animal. Toby tightened his finger on the trigger, but the dog moved behind a rock and was mostly hidden from view. Then it climbed onto the rock and turned in their direction, at last seeing the two brothers on the ridge.

  Toby fired as the dog moved, the butt of the Lovell thudding into his shoulder as a cloud of gun smoke billowed. When it cleared the dingo was unhurt, twisting and turning around boulders as it sprinted in the opposite direction.

  Paddy ran forward and let his spear fly in a high arc. It reached its zenith and plummeted towards the ground. A good throw, at least sixty yards, the distance helped by Paddy’s vantage point on the ridge. The spear struck the ground two feet to the dog’s right, the fire-hardened tip shattering against the rocks.

  Toby dropped to one knee and opened the ammunition pouch slung around his neck. He pulled out a fresh cartridge, tore it open with his teeth, poured the fine grains of gunpowder into the barrel of the Lovell and followed it with a musket ball in a wad of cloth. With speed garnered through practice, he slid the loading rod from beneath the barrel and tamped the load. As he slid the rod back home with one hand, the other was already placing a cap onto the firing nipple. Then he had the hammer at full cock again and aimed at the yellow shadow dashing between the rocks.

  The dingo reached the far rise and started its climb, leaping from boulder to boulder. The animal was tiring, but it still carried too much speed for Toby to have a clean shot.

  ‘Take him, Toby,’ Paddy urged. ‘You can do it.’

  Toby watched the dingo climb higher and higher, following every movement with the front sight.

  ‘C’mon, Toby! Take the shot!’

  There was such an edge of excitement in his brother’s voice that Toby glanced up at him. Paddy’s gaze followed the dingo intently and it took him several moments to realise Toby was holding the musket towards him.

  ‘You take the shot, Pad.’

  Paddy blinked uncertainly, not taking his eyes off the gun. ‘But what ab
out the rules?’

  ‘You’re nearly sixteen. C’mon, do you want to take the shot or not?’

  Paddy hesitated for a heartbeat, then he took the Lovell from Toby and mimicked his posture, crouching down on one knee.

  ‘Don’t fire yet,’ Toby warned. ‘He’s moving too fast.’

  ‘U-huh!’

  ‘Too many rocks in the way. Wait until he tops the ridge and exposes himself on the skyline.’

  ‘U-huh!’

  ‘The ball will drop about four inches at that distance, so aim a little high.’

  ‘U-huh!’

  The dingo was a yard beneath the ridgetop now. It paused briefly on a boulder and gathered itself for the final leap that would carry it out of the gully.

  ‘When he lands after this jump. Take him, Pad!’

  The dingo leaped gracefully through the air with its front legs outstretched, looking more like a cat than a dog. It gained the edge of the gully and paused to glance in the direction of the brothers, its outline silhouetted against the sky. At that instant, Paddy fired.

  Toby heard his brother grunt from the force of the recoil. Another cloud of gun smoke obscured their vision before being snatched away on the breeze. The gunshot echoed off the ranges, coming at them again and again.

  The dingo lay sprawled on the opposite ridge. The ball had struck the animal in the ribs and its hind legs twitched as it died.

  ‘Nice shooting, Pad. You killed him. He won’t be coming down to raid Ma’s chooks any more, that’s for sure.’

  Paddy lowered the gun, a grin of triumph on his face. He held the musket out for Toby to take. ‘That was the best thing I have ever done in my life, Toby.’

  ‘Just make sure Pa doesn’t find out I let you use the gun. He’ll never let either of us near it again.’

  ‘I won’t, Toby. You can bet I won’t.’

  Toby could see in his brother’s eyes that there was no way he would give either of them up. ‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘Let’s go skin the bugger to prove to Ma that we got him.’

  Chilbi watched the smoke coming from the chimney of the little homestead on the valley floor and knew that soon they would kill again. The two Djarriba were excited, shifting in their saddles and chattering in that strange tongue of theirs, talking quickly so that he was only able to follow half the conversation.

  ‘There’ll be food down there. I can’t eat too much more of that black fella shit,’ the one called Tanner complained. No matter how good the hunt had been or the amount of food on offer, he would often study his meal with a disgusted look, push it away and eat some of the dried meat he carried in his saddlebags instead.

  The other Djarriba, the big white man Chilbi’s people had named Warrigal, was better accustomed to the food offered by the land, though he never hunted for it himself. That task he left to the three Jannjirra warriors.

  ‘Chilbi?’

  The white men had finished their discussion.

  ‘Yes, Warrigal?’

  ‘You heard the Djarriba thunder earlier?’ the big man said, speaking the language of the people.

  Chilbi nodded. The noise had caused Warrigal and Tanner to reach for their weapons and they had waited nervously in the shadows until the echoes died away.

  ‘How far away?’

  Chilbi pointed across the valley. ‘Long way that way.’

  Warrigal considered this information. ‘Those shots were far enough apart to have come from the same gun.’

  ‘Just a little homestead,’ Tanner said. ‘A ma and pa outfit, I reckon. Even if the hunter gets home before we get there, I don’t think they’ll give us too much trouble. We’ve been three weeks in the bush. I need a good feed, Warrigal.’

  ‘Me too,’ Warrigal nodded his big, scraggly head. ‘Chilbi? Scout us a way down into the valley.’ He pointed at the homestead. ‘We will take our war to those below.’

  ‘Yes, Warrigal.’ Chilbi urged his mount forward, still feeling a little uncomfortable at the motion of the huge beast beneath him. His brothers, Yawong and Tarrat, fell in behind, their hands resting on their war clubs.

  Standing on the verandah of the homestead, Sean O’Rourke looked at the dingo pelt at his feet, then his two sons, and then the pelt again.

  ‘So you got him, boys?’ He towered over both his lads, his greying head almost brushing the bush poles that were the homestead’s rafters.

  ‘Sure did, Pa.’ Paddy said, excited to tell the story of the hunt, the words gushing from his mouth. ‘We tracked him right into that gully up beyond the ridge.’

  ‘That so?’ their father said. He picked up the raw pelt and poked his finger through the hole made by the musket ball. ‘Only one hole in it. I heard two shots echo off the hills.’

  ‘Missed with the first one,’ Toby said quickly, before Paddy could respond. ‘He made a run for higher ground. Gave me time to reload and take him down when he reached the skyline.’

  ‘Ah! Nice work.’ Their father nodded his head. ‘Well, your mother will be pleased. This old dog won’t be raiding her chooks any more.’ He dropped the pelt onto the verandah boards. ‘We can cure this later.’ His hand shot out and gripped Toby’s chin, the thumb rubbing his right cheek. ‘The cap from the Lovell has left a little mark on your face, Toby. Best you go and wash it off.’

  Toby felt the acid of despair in his stomach. As his father rubbed at his cheek, he turned his eyes towards Paddy. His brother still had that triumphant grin on his face, and the mark left by the flash of the firing cap was plain to see against his tanned skin.

  ‘Paddy? You best wash yours off, too. Then you can come and help me take a hind quarter off a side of mutton for your mother to roast. Go now,’ he barked, and Paddy turned and ran to where the washstand stood behind the homestead, his hand rubbing at his cheek.

  Toby felt the grip tighten on his chin and he looked up at his father. Sean O’Rourke’s eyes were fixed firmly on him. There was a hint of anger in the steel-blue depths, but his father’s beard hid the set of his mouth.

  ‘Who taught you to shoot, Toby?’

  ‘You did, Pa.’

  ‘Are you a good shot, boy?’

  ‘I like to think so, Pa.’

  ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ The eyes lightened a little and creased at the corners. ‘So, if you’re such a good shot, then you must’ve had a good teacher.’

  ‘Yes, Pa.’

  ‘But not good enough to teach your brother how to shoot.’

  Toby wanted to turn away, to look anywhere but at his father, but the grip on his chin was firm. ‘Pa, he was pleading with me. I did it more to shut him up than anything else. You know what Paddy’s like when he gets to whining about something.’

  Sean ignored the tone in his son’s voice. ‘Toby, when I let you use the gun, I place it into your responsibility. My rules then become your rules.’

  ‘Yes, Pa.’

  ‘Oh, “Yes, Pa”, is it now? It wasn’t “Yes, Pa” when you let Paddy use the gun.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Pa.’

  The hand dropped and Toby rubbed at his chin as he waited for his father to decide what his punishment would be.

  ‘Your mother is cooking a roast for tonight’s dinner. She needs the wood box by the kitchen door kept topped up with a good supply. In between cutting wood, you can help her in the kitchen. Peeling potatoes, stripping cabbage, whatever she needs.’

  ‘Yes, Pa.’

  ‘And you won’t be using the Lovell for a while. From now until Paddy turns sixteen. You can both wait.’

  Toby drew breath to protest, but the look in his father’s eyes made him think again. He was nineteen years old and his father was punishing him as if he were twelve, but he knew there was nothing he could do but accept the punishment and wait out his time.

  ‘Go and wash your face, Toby. Then I want to hear that axe ringing for an hour or more.’

  Toby nodded and turned away, but his father’s voice brought him up short.

  ‘So, the first time Paddy fires the gun, he drops
a dingo with a chest shot. At what range?’

  Toby turned to see his father holding the pelt again, his finger through the hole. ‘Must’ve been all of eighty yards, Pa.’

  ‘Eighty yards, hey?’ Sean looked at his finger and shook his head in wonder. Then he gave Toby a look that said he had better get moving.

  Toby was at the wood heap behind the tack shed when he first noticed the riders. They were still high on the ridge, but coming steadily along the outside of the house paddock. It was the direction they came from that made them a curiosity. The O’Rourke place was the last of a string of properties that followed a narrow valley into the maw of the mountains. There was nothing north until the settled areas of the Goulburn valley and the only paths through were east at the Kilmore Gap, or at the Mount Alexander road, a day’s ride to the west.

  The riders rounded the corner at the far side of the house paddock and paused beside the two-rut track that led into the settlement of Bunyong Creek, five miles down the valley. Toby saw an arm or two gesture back and forth as they discussed their options. After a few moments they turned towards the slip rails at the bottom of the paddock.

  Toby gathered up an armload of wood and walked around the shed to the front of the homestead where he climbed the verandah steps and dropped the wood into a box beside the open kitchen door. Careful to shake any woodchips from his hair and clothing, he went inside.

  The heat in the humble little home was stifling and sweat prickled the skin on his arms. His mother stood stirring a pot in the shimmering air around the oven. A pile of peeled potatoes sat on a plate on the table.

  ‘I cut a good load, Ma. Enough for a couple of days at least.’

  Ellen O’Rourke finished her stirring and tapped the wooden spoon on the brim of the pot a few times before setting it down. ‘You’re a good lad to be sure,’ she said in her bubbling Irish brogue.

  ‘Where’s Pa?’

  Ellen pointed with her chin towards the side of the house, in the direction of the little shed. ‘He’s still out there with Paddy, cutting a hock off last week’s kill. Tell him to be quick about it. If it doesn’t go in the oven soon we won’t be eating till well after eight.’