Saturday’s stagecoach from Geelong was unusually late, even accounting for the recent rain that flooded crossings and made the road muddy up to the fetlock or more in places. Sunday did not bring an appearance, however unlikely on the Sabbath, and Monday’s, arriving after sunset in the glow of its lamps, reported no sight of the overdue coach between the southern coastal town and Ballarat. Which gave rise to that other great concern in the minds of many and, immediately, on the lips of one:
“Blasted bushrangers!” Roger Pendhurst’s angry howl echoed in the polished halls of his hilltop manor. “Hang every bloody last one of them if they’ve brought ruin to that coach.”
Though it was more common for the outlaws to strike on the rich northern road between Ballarat and Bendigo and further afield, where the hills afforded good lookouts and better hideouts.
Roger, whose wealth had begun with a pastoral lease before increasing exponentially with the Karpathen gold mine at nearby Creswick, screamed for his favoured henchmen. His stepson, who’d brought the confirmation that the Cobb and Co was not just late but apparently lost, rushed to gather them, thoughts of Tuesday luncheon abandoned.
Thompson and Heatherstone appeared presently, dressed little better than miners in cotton and waistcoats compared to their master’s suit and cravat.
“I am expecting my nephew on that coach. He is bringing something from my brother that is essential to the expansion of the Karpathen. Worth a pretty penny, boys, not to be interrupted by ne’er-do-wells too lazy to take up the tools of an honest trade.”
All hung their heads, awaiting the tirade that traditionally harkened to life on the lease and then on the diggings, wealth gained through toil and boldness. The litany was espoused to any within earshot, at the manor, the club, the races, especially if the brandy had been flowing. You took what you could with both fists and fought to keep hold of it. The gift horse was never to be looked at in the mouth, rather, whipped until it dropped, and be damned anyone who got trampled in the process.
“Get down to the camp and have that useless Sergeant Beckett put together a squad and go find my blasted nephew, with or without the coach. Hear me? I don’t care if you have to drag him by his boot heels from the bar at Craig’s, you bring him here.”
The lackeys mumbled a “yes, boss” and made for the door, hats in hand.
Roger held them up with a shout. “And take this lad with you. ’Bout time my stepson earned his keep with something manly.”
Both men grimaced, but not as much as the lad in question. It had rained all weekend, and he had been anticipating making the most of the break in the weather with some light accounting, a perusal of the newspaper his stepfather had finished with and an afternoon tea in the rotunda in the back yard.
“Sir?” the lad said, fighting the quiver in his voice.
“You heard me, Stewart. Pull on some britches and saddle up. No one steals from Roger Pendhurst.”
Stewart’s mother spoke up then, an overlooked shape in her black gown seated in the shadowed corner by the fireplace, her cross-stitch now suspended in her lap.
“Stewart’s chest is hardly up for such an excursion, Roger.”
“Tosh, Annabelle. It’s just a horse ride, with Thompson and Heatherstone here to look after him. Plus a squad of our finest troopers led by our inimitable sergeant.”
Stewart looked hopefully to his mother, her face a pale blur emanating concern. She had been especially mindful of his health since her husband’s death in a cave-in. Roger, his partner in the mine, had barely escaped with his own life, a circumstance that Stewart often had cause to regret, for all that the man had taken in his mother and him. A frail woman to the eye, as though winnowed by sorrow if not the wind and cold of the country of her parents’ birth, but strong enough to give Roger a memorable black eye and split lip in a post-nuptial tiff about a husband’s rights. An accord had been struck that gave both widow and son some relief, even if the whispers of Roger’s infidelities made socialising a tad fraught.
To her credit, Annabelle knew when to swing her punches and when to hold them.
“The leaves have barely begun to turn; the fresh air may reward him,” Pendhurst said with a huff. “Rug up, Stewart, and stick close to Thompson and Heatherstone here. They will look after you. On their lives.”
The men muttered their assurances, but their looks spoke of crossed fingers. Neither man was much of a friend to Stewart, and he did his utmost to avoid them. With his stepfather, they were the only witnesses to his father’s demise, murmuring about cracking timbers and falling earth, and how there had been time to pull only Pendhurst from the collapse.
“Come along then, young Stewart,” said Thompson. “Best be about it while we still have the most of the day. Meet us in the stables once you’ve got your riding clobber on.”
“None of that fancy rubbish, mind,” Heatherstone added. “We’re for the road, not a Sunday promenade around the lake to giddy-ap the fillies.”
Thompson chortled, spittle flecking his lips and beard. He whispered, well under the hearing of mother and stepfather, “I doubt too many fillies have been troubled by our young steed.”
Stewart, blushing, exited by the side door with a mumbled farewell to his mother, a scant nod to Roger. Riding britches and boots it would be, along with scarf, coat, and a side trip to the drawing room to fill a flask of whisky. To ease the tightness in his chest and his jangled nerves. He suspected both would be tested on this blighted excursion.
As it turned out, the sergeant had no interest in sending a full squad of troopers on a fool’s errand to dig out a coach stuck up to its axles in a creek crossing, and so Stewart found himself in the company of just two, the pair in dishevelled uniforms with stained shirts and a reek of rum and tobacco that may have influenced the sergeant’s choice of personnel. The flinty looks they gave made Stewart stupidly grateful of the presence of the solidly built Thompson and Heatherstone, who, while not giving a toss for his wellbeing in general did have an appreciation of their boss’s wrath. Still, he could not dispel the notion of winding up in a ditch with the troopers squabbling over possession of his riding coat, fob and boots, and so kept his mouth shut and eyes down as the five followed the rutted Geelong road in search of the overdue stagecoach.
“Can’t imagine the widow’s happy to have the precious heir sleeping rough,” said Heatherstone, a foot hitched nonchalantly across the front of the saddle while he rolled yet another noxious cigarette.
Stewart braced for the whiff of coarse tobacco, his lungs already thick with the miasma of horse, mud and body odour brought to the simmer by afternoon sunshine undoctored by cloud or autumn breeze.
“Youngster has to learn the business someday,” Thompson said, all four otherwise apparently oblivious to said youngster’s presence on a tame piebald chosen for him by his mother. Little better than a carthorse, his stepfather had adjudged, but Stewart felt he and his steed were well suited, its quiet disposition welcome compared to the seething ribaldry of his present company, none of them able to tame a beard or keep a shirt stain-free and well stitched, it seemed. Guns and knives impressed on him a certain modesty in his observations; he found the trail most interesting and kept his eyes upon it, while his ears stayed pricked for any mayhem from his companions. But so far, just japes about his reserved mother and his spineless self.
“Maybe when we find the coach and Mr Pendhurst’s treasure, we can reward the youngster with a roll at Nell’s.” Heatherstone leered at Stewart, the man’s lips glistening from within their border of curly black hairs in a way that both horrified and fascinated, the effect diminished when the stained palings of his ragged teeth were exposed.
Stewart stared once more at the ground in front of his nag, cheeks flushed. Mother and the reverend at Christ Church were both very clear about the wages of sin; passing through the cesspit of Esmond Street on the way out of town had been enough to reinforce the lesson, men clearly at the bottom of desperation’s pit dragging women and girls down with them, or vice versa.
He suspected he knew the nature of the treasure borne by the nephew, Thomas. He had heard his stepfather working out loud on a letter some months before, extolling the virtues of the mine and the need for capital to increase its stampers and pumps to pillage the river of gold locked in the quartz hundreds of feet below. Want of equipment was the only barrier to his team of well-drilled Cornishmen unlocking the vast bounty. The anticipated promissory note was a secret knowledge that Stewart kept to himself, a small leg up over his companions who were not so well versed in their master’s business as they might think. A kernel of comfort on an otherwise bleak outing.
They rode on, afternoon heat stealing conversation but for occasional cussing at the flies that buzzed around them. The cloying smell of drying mud rose from the rutted road; sweat slicked Stewart’s back and thighs and hat band; his legs protested the protracted time in the saddle. This was no mere doddle down to the lake for a Sunday picnic; the piebald plodded on with an air of resignation.
It was McRae, the portlier of the pair of troopers, who spotted the first sign of mishap. They had passed the most recent changing station a few miles back, a welcome opportunity to wash grime from faces, refill canteens and rest the horses. The grooms reported that Saturday’s coach had not arrived for a fresh team, and enquiries of the Monday coach as to the absence of its predecessor had drawn a blank. Whether the coach had reached the next station down the road the searchers would need to ask on arrival, but as it was, they were spared that 15 miles or so.
“Thompson,” McRae said, leaning low to point. “Would you look at this, then.”
A shattered coach lamp, sheared from its place aside the cab, lay at the base of a gum tree that stood at the fork of a scant trail, the impact marked by a clear scar in the smooth grey bark. The scent of kerosene still wafted, ghostlike, from the ruin.
“And here.” Trooper Davis indicated a set of wheel marks still puddled with stale water, veering down the side track, the more recent coaches having left a clear trail across the earlier passage.
“Why on Earth…” Thompson said, surveying the scrub. The track was barely discernible, masked by shrubs and regrowth and lined tightly by trees as it wound its way out of sight up a thickly forested slope.
A creek gurgled nearby and a crow gave a rusty cry, but the air was still and nothing stirred, just the swish of tail and mane and clop of hoof as the horses shifted listlessly on the spot.
“A strange detour,” Heatherstone said, spitting tobacco before he took another draw.
Davis unholstered his rifle, and Stewart would’ve sworn he saw the man’s nose twitch, rodent-like, as though seeking to penetrate his own reek for the tell-tale scent of a nearby threat.
“Lost in the dark?” Stewart wondered out loud.
Thompson snorted. “The whips know this road better than the back of their hand, boy. No way to mistake this path for the main road. Anyone know where it leads?”
None did. Possibly to a miner’s camp from the headier days of the rush, but more likely a sheep paddock or perhaps a homestead, but none could name a claim or holding nearby.
“Nothing for it then,” said Thompson as he took hold of his rifle, the others following suit. “Look sharp. If the coach has been waylaid, the bandits may still be around.”
Stewart, without rifle or pistol or even a blade other than his pocket knife, felt bereft.
“In the middle,” Thompson ordered him, then led the way, with a trooper before and after Stewart and Heatherstone bringing up the rear. At least the man’s noisome cigarette was behind, Stewart not having to breathe in the fumes, reminiscent of the smoke from a train billowing across the carriages.
It was a short time after that they found presumably the driver, whip near at hand, likely knocked from his perch by a low overhanging branch, and the passenger who would’ve sat beside him on the coveted box seat. Both quite dead.
“Hope he didn’t pay extra for the privilege.” Thompson dismounted and rolled the passenger onto his back in the bracken beside the track. Late afternoon sun filtering through the gums striped the corpse with shadow, but the bruising around the face and neck was unmissable. “Broken neck, most like. Quick, at least.”
Davis nodded, tugged at the open neck of his coat as though against a sudden chill, then held his rifle at the ready across the saddle. He stank of rum, as though his day’s intake was seeping out through his pores.
“Is it Pendhurst’s nephew?”
Thompson shrugged. “Does he look like a Thomas?”
He rifled the man’s jacket, retrieved a wallet and undid its strap to open it. He squinted hard at a piece of paper he took from inside. “Knock. Strange name. German, by the look.” He withdrew another paper, squinted close, mumbled: “A deed? In Ballarat. Not in his name.” Then said, louder: “Also not Thomas.” He returned the papers and slipped the wallet into his saddlebag.
“The team kept going,” Davis said. “Something must’ve got into them, to keep going on such a rough track without a driver.”
“The coachers are bred for the part, it’s true,” Heatherstone said, making the most of his chance to roll another cigarette, “but a horse is still a horse.” He licked the paper, the wet glisten of his tongue reminding Stewart of a lizard or snake. “Doesn’t take much to spook ’em.”
A kookaburra cackled and Stewart flinched, feeling the cold penetrate suddenly where he sat in the shade, the sun barely glinting through the glossy leaves as it sank low towards the crown of the hill.
Sweet wattle scent rose around them as they plodded on, the horses nose to tail as though seeking comfort, and Stewart was reminded of his father’s funeral procession, the sprigs of gold and green on the coffin, the lilies, his mother’s tears, the empty words of the priest and the flash of anger at the sight of Pendhurst’s arm around his mother’s black-clad shoulders.
Yet, here they were, at Pendhurst’s bidding, the cold coming down with the night, his lungs already feeling the icy thickness settling within. He tightened his scarf, afraid to reach for his flask lest the four mouths around him demand a share. They had their own, were even now reaching for them, Davis in front tilting his at a great angle.
Stewart would have made for home but knew quite well he would not even reach the Cobb and Co station before the dark caught him, not to mention the wrath of Thompson and his stepfather once the fact of his cowardice had emerged. He would not put his mother through another harangue about the unfitness of the son that Pendhurst had inherited along with the widow’s share of the mine. No, he would have to see it through and hope to avoid the threat of Esmond Street and whatever other bullyboy ideas his father’s lackeys dreamed up between now and then. Return the nephew and the promissory note or whatever form the capital came in, and that would mollify Pendhurst for some time, at least until the next opportunity for disparagement arose.
“There she be,” Thompson said, even as Davis pointed with his empty flask.
The coach was on its side, having crashed through wattle and saplings down a slope at a sharp turn. It may have rolled before coming to rest against trees, the shell cracked and misshapen, axles bare and wheels mangled. The coachers were dead in their traces, all four, a bloody tangle of limbs and harness and foliage, with mailbags and luggage strewn across the flattened area between road and wreck. Letters lay like breadcrumbs; a clothesline’s worth of garments were draped on bushes and logs as though in the aftermath of a willy-willy. Like a battlefield, Stewart thought. He half expected to see spectral people slide into those awkwardly shaped shirts and petticoats and wander the field, looking for their missing pieces. He followed the carnage to the ruin of the stagecoach, thinking that was the place where the spectres would reside. The passengers, mashed together like ingredients in a stew pot.
He swigged whisky, welcoming the warmth in throat and gut, and none of the four with him noticed. None reached out a hand.
“My God,” Davis said, raised his rifle, fired. “Put it down, you devil!”
Stewart, jolted by the sudden shot, had just enough time to see the tawny shape at the end of the barrel’s direction. Crows, cockatoos erupted from the trees in protest, filling the air with screeches, banshees awoken from their slumber.
What might have been a shirt and trousers lying near the ruptured rear of the coach jerked as the wild dog released its grip and fled.
“Did you see?” Davis said, fumbling another round from his bandolier into the breech as he scanned the bushes. “It was eating him!”
“I’m sure it wasn’t the first to take a morsel,” Thompson said, easing back in his saddle, lowering his rifle. “Been here a couple days.”
“Aye, bastard dog.” McRae fired into the curtain of bushes. His horse jittered, and, as the shot rolled away, a howl arose, and then another.
“Mock away, you bastards,” McRae said, standing in his stirrups as though the extra inches would reveal the pack.
Stewart swigged again, then put the flask away, his nape still prickling from the dingo chorus, the sensation travelling all the way to his balls. Mockery? Threat, more like, a promise to return to finish the meal. The piebald stamped but he held it. The horse seemed as keen to leave as he was but likely also lacked the courage to face the gathering night alone.
“We need to check.” Thompson swung himself down. “Here, boy, hold the reins.”
Stewart held them, then for Heatherstone and Davis, while McRae retained his vantage in the saddle, staring widely, the rifle, reloaded, held high.
“How many passengers were there?” Heatherstone asked, but no one had bothered to ask as to the manifest. A nephew and some prized object was all they knew.
“Check him,” Thompson told Davis, who advanced cautiously as though on a bushranger’s camp and not a corpse. Perhaps he expected the dog to return, maybe with friends, and try for fresh meat.
He bent to one knee and patted down the body. “Nothing,” he reported. “Must’ve crawled this far. He’s fair beaten up. Tore up, too. I think the crows have had his eyes.”
Thompson and Heatherstone peered through cracks in the coach. Heatherstone called a loud, “Hello.”
“I think they’d know we were here,” Thompson said, nasty like. He’d flinched at Heatherstone’s sudden announcement so close to his ear and clearly didn’t like it.
He stared at Stewart over his shoulder, as though daring him to grin. As though Stewart hadn’t also startled, hadn’t almost let go the reins of all three. And wouldn’t that have been a pretty to-do? He clenched the leather harder.
Thompson scrambled up the belly of the coach to stand on the side, where the door stood closed. He pulled at it but it didn’t budge, though the coach creaked.
“Jammed,” he said. “Help me, Heatherstone.”
The man clambered up, clumsy, but made the top and knelt and heaved in time with Thompson. The door came open with a crack of timber and Thompson fell back, two steps, caught himself, did not fall.
Another glance at Stewart, maybe reproach, maybe just checking he was still there with the horses.
“Oi, where’s Davis?” the mounted McRae asked.
“What?” Thompson asked.
“He was there with the stiff. Now he ain’t.”
Heatherstone and Thompson made a show of looking around.
“Gone to water the horse, most probably,” Heatherstone said.
“Here,” McRae said, dismounting with a huff, then handing yet another set of reins to Stewart.
Rifle to shoulder, he strode methodically towards the corpse.
“Anyone in there?” Heatherstone asked of the carriage.
“For God’s sake, Heatherstone, they’re dead,” Thompson said.
“I don’t want to go in there,” Heatherstone admitted. “Black as the pit, it is.”
Thompson snorted, suspended himself by his arms, slowly lowered himself into the hole.
Stewart imagined him, boots touching down on arms, legs, chests, heads. Imagined them sprawled together in unnatural positions.
He hoped there wasn’t a woman, before remembering there was women’s clothing in the debris. He didn’t like the idea of Thompson looking down at her. He imagined her to be young and pretty. He hoped her skirt was down, her modesty preserved from the likes of him. From the men around her, who had been thrown against her, who she had been made to suffer the touch of. Had been made to touch.
“I’ll be buggered if one of these ain’t a Chinaman,” came Thompson’s muffled exclamation. “I’ll bet a bob to a pound that ain’t the nephew.”
“What in the—you gents need come see this.” The fear in McRae’s voice was unmistakeable.
“What’s wrong?” Heatherstone asked, moving slowly, the coach creaking like an old porch.
“Still tied to the baggage rack, but it’s broken loose, come apart. A crate.”
“A crate? Yeah, scary.”
“Nay, nay, it’s what’s in it. The shape of it. Basic, but a coffin.”
“A box in a box? Are you sure it’s a coffin?”
“Wider at the top than at the bottom. What would you call it?”
Thompson appeared, head and shoulders, like a digger from a shaft. “Just the one? Pity, because I count customers for a good six here.”
“Why would someone ship a coffin?” McRae asked, his voice jittery.
“What’s in it, man?” Heatherstone asked, his voice pitched high.
“I’m not opening the blasted thing!”
“Then how do you know it’s a coffin and not just some fancy box?”
“Fine, then, but keep a good watch!” McRae approached the crate as though it were a snake, struck a match and held it close. “Writing, here. Stamped on the wood. German, I think. A name: Knock. Your passenger, Thompson?”
“Just open the blasted thing and let’s be about it,” Thompson called back.
McRae jabbed at the timbers, finally told Heatherstone again to keep an eye out as he pulled a knife and sliced at the ropes to fully free the box so he could remove the shattered lid and work at the one within.
“I’ll be,” he said, standing back, hand to forehead under his cap.
“Well?” Heatherstone asked.
“Dirt. Just dirt.”
“Well,” Thompson said. “I’m glad that mystery’s solved. Make a fire, will you? I’ll get what I can, see if we can work out who’s who.” He vanished back into the coach, Heatherstone cussing softly as his perch rocked with the sudden motion.
“I’m gonna look for Davis some more,” McRae said.
“Don’t go too far,” Heatherstone said. “This country will swallow you whole.”
“Aye, like them boys at Daylesford.”
“Just like ’em,” he said, “but maybe no one will find your body.”
“Light that fire. It’ll guide me back.”
The trooper vanished into the brush, calling Davis, and the dark seemed to wrap around Stewart. He tried to track the trooper, but his shape was lost, branches and trees taking on the appearance of figures crouching and creeping in the bushes. He imagined bushrangers there, taking aim, ready to slaughter and pillage.
It was a relief when Heatherstone clambered down, took the reins from Stewart and told him to dismount. Stewart flexed his fingers, his hand cramped from his tight hold on the leathers, the horses skittish.
“I’ll tether this lot,” Heatherstone said. “Grab up some wood for the fire.”
“We’re not staying here, are we?” Stewart asked, the words coming out in a wheeze, the fear all but choking him.
“Well, we’re not gonna try to ride back to Ballarat in the dark.”
“We can make the changing station, though. There’s an inn there.”
“Not in the dark. We need to find this nephew and whatever it is that has Pendhurst so steamed up. Sure as eggs it ain’t a box o’ dirt.”
Far from the lights and fires of the town, the night came down like a blindfold, and without moonlight, even the well-blazed road to Geelong would be difficult to follow and treacherous under foot. He would have been prepared to try, but not alone. Too easy to lose one’s bearings, as Heatherstone had said, and die of thirst or starvation or predation.
Just looking for firewood was no easy task in the gloom. Stewart winced with every crack and rustle of his step, feeling the eyes of the wild dogs and the maybe bushrangers following his every move. The recent rain meant everything was damp, bark peeling away in his fingers.
He had managed to gather an armload of reasonably dry kindling when a shot startled him and he dropped the lot. The report was followed by a screech, as though a galah had been set alight. The noise cut into him like a saw, right to the bone.
Heatherstone was on his arse, two horses bolting off down the track, the other three jerking at their tethers. He settled them, swore at Stewart. “Don’t just stand there, you prissy prick—grab the rifle!”
Stewart stumbled across to the tree where Heatherstone’s Martini Henry leaned against the trunk.
“There’s one in the breech,” Heatherstone warned him.
There was nothing to shoot at. Just tree trunks glowing in what was left of the day.
“Thompson!” Heatherstone shouted the man’s name a second time, then added, “Get out here now!”
Thompson appeared, head and shoulders again. “What’s all the noise?”
He slipped, fell, arms flailing. Screamed. The coach rocked. There came the knocking of things against timber. Then silence.
“Thompson!”
Heatherstone shouted his name three times, but there was no answer.
“Get that blasted fire lit, boy. Quick bloody smart. And give me that bloody rifle before you shoot your dick off.”
A figure rose through the doorway of the coach, bald head mounted with elongated, pointed ears, wide eyes aglow with unmistakable malevolence, protruding front teeth sharper than a roasting fork. Brass buttons on its coat, the ghost of a gent or an officer, maybe. It floated free, arms by its side, nothing but air under it as it glided to the ground and moved towards them as though propelled by a zephyr Stewart could not feel. Could not feel anything but an icy dread locked around him. Heatherstone came up beside Stewart, muttering, the rifle clenched to his shoulder.
“Stop right there!”
The figure advanced, silent on the leaf litter and detritus, its arms slowly rising to reveal talons curved and sharp as bale hooks.
Heatherstone fired, the report rocking Stewart, filling his head like an avalanche. If the round found the mark, the figure gave no sign. Heatherstone grabbed for a new bullet, managed to get it into the breech. But then the creature was on him, dragging him to the ground, those misshapen fangs fixing to the man’s throat despite the desperate, useless slapping and punching of its victim. The man’s body arched as he emitted a final groan, one hand clenched in the wet earth at his side, then collapsed and lay still. The creature eased back on its haunches, its tongue lapping at the dark stains around its mouth, and fixed its black orbs on Stewart.
As dark as the starless night, those eyes, overshadowed by heavy brows, flanked by those pointed ears that made Stewart fear the head would take flight alone and attack his throat. The Martini Henry lay at his feet, but he lacked the ability to kneel, let alone shoot.
The creature’s nose twitched above its almost lipless mouth, then it rose in a smooth, soundless motion like a pocket knife unfolding and circled him close enough to touch, a wild dog appraising its helpless prey.
“What is it you want?” Stewart managed to gasp. Clearly, the answer was all around him, yet he asked as though seeking to be told otherwise. For reprieve. God, he was so weak, he could barely hold the crouch he had slumped into, but feared to fall lest the creature be upon him. His hand was at his throat, as though to hide the temptation; through scarf and skin, he could feel the rush of his laboured breath, his blood, and wished them both to subside.
A moment of clarity, like a shaft of moonlight on a stygian night; a straw to grasp at.
“I…I can help you.” He forced himself to his feet and lowered his hand, exposing his throat. The creature stood, head at an angle, as though awaiting his offer, or sizing him up. “I know a place. A house. There are people there. People everywhere.” He imagined his stepfather, the unravelling of his cravat, a fist thumping uselessly on the floor in the drawing room as the monster mined its fill of the man’s rich veins.
The creature advanced, close enough for its coat hem to brush Stewart’s boots, for the musty reek of earth and blood to cloud around him. Its eyes bored into him, with intelligence if not understanding.
“I can get you what you need,” Stewart said, straightening. He tapped his chest with his thumb. “I can be Knock.”
His hand stopped shaking as he held it out, and he smiled as the creature growled its response—“Knock”—and placed its bloody claw in his palm.