Jack and Arnold had gone on to the mill ahead of Will. He was about to follow them when Libby came hurtling out of her room. She grasped his hand and tugged.
‘What’s this, now?’ he asked, seeing the wildness in her eyes that so often heralded a fit or a vision.
‘She has one of her heads,’ Sylvia said. ‘I tried to get some headache powder down her but she spat it back at me.’
Libby grunted, pulled at Will’s hand. ‘G-go, n-n-no.’
‘Libby, my love, I have to go to work. How else can I afford fine trinkets for my lovely girl?’ he said, fingering her locket.
She let out an ear-splitting wail.
‘You’re as pale as a winter frost, my lovely. Bed’s the place for you.’ He gently uncurled Libby’s fingers from his hand and ushered her to Sylvia.
It was as well his work was second nature, he acknowledged later, pushing a plane over the wood with long steady strokes, his mind on his daughter. She’d worked herself into a right old lather this morning. He’d been afraid she might take one of her fits — or worse, as far as Sylvia was concerned, one of her visions. If only she could talk properly.
They’d sent her to school in Stafford but she’d played up like the very devil, biting and scratching the other children, even attacking the teacher one day. After that, the teacher had refused to allow Libby in the classroom. Not that he could blame her. He and Sylvia had tried teaching her to read and write, but they’d made no more progress than the teacher. Opening a book in Libby’s presence for any purpose other than reading her a story inevitably sent her into one of her tantrums.
Sylvia, with her damned religion, believed Libby’s problems were God’s will, though not so the visions. She thought them an unholy curse and they frightened her. Whereas he knew that the blame for the child’s afflictions lay with him, and looked upon the visions with a stoic acceptance.
He was convinced that somewhere, deep inside Libby’s head, lay real intelligence, a secret mind, and that one day, if he could only find the key, the child would blossom.
Time and again, awake and asleep, he’d relived the day she’d tripped over the rake he’d left in her way. Would it have made a difference to the child if they’d lived in a less isolated spot with better medical treatment available? But he made his living from milling his own wood. Cabinet-making could be practised in the city, but milling could not, and it was that saving on the expense of buying timber that made his business so lucrative.
But it was work that should be occupying his mind, he reminded himself, putting down the plane. ‘Arnold … Jack,’ he called. ‘Best get on with finishing that log we started on yesterday.’
Jack put down his saw, grabbed a sledgehammer and joined his father.
‘Brace needs moving before we can do anything,’ Will said.
‘Let’s get on with it then.’
‘Where’s Arnold got to?’ Will asked as they walked to the sawpit.
‘Last I saw, he was heading into the bush. Said he’d seen the cows wandering and he was off to round them up.’
‘Dammit!’ Will came to an abrupt stop. ‘We’d best wait until he’s back to help move the brace. It’s too dangerous to move on our own.’
‘No it’s not. I can always go down the pit and hammer the brace along while you work the lever,’ said Jack.
Will shook his head. They had sometimes moved the braces that supported the logs, just the two of them, but it was risky. Too easy for the log to fall on top of whoever was in the pit.
‘No, we’ll leave it until he can help. Best not take a chance,’ Will muttered, frowning at the delay. ‘I’m not too sure about Arnold. He was all hours getting home last night and I could still smell the drink on him this morning. Other times I’ve caught more than a whiff of the grog on the man, too. He’s wrong if he thinks the peppermints he’s always sucking hide it.’
‘I caught him drinking once,’ said Jack. ‘I saw the bottle before he managed to hide it.’
‘You should have told me,’ said Will, grim faced.
‘It was only a glimpse, and I thought I might have been mistaken.’
‘You still should have told me. He’s not a bad worker when he’s of a mind, I grant you, but I can’t let him put us at risk because he’s fuddled with the drink. To be truthful, I’ve been giving some thought to sending him on his way if he doesn’t straighten himself up.’
‘Likely he’ll be a while getting them cows rounded up and back to the paddock. We’ll lose the best part of the day,’ said Jack.
‘If it is cows the fool’s seeing to,’ Will growled. He looked at the log, then into the bush, as if Arnold might suddenly materialise. ‘I suppose we can do it without him, but I’ll go underneath,’ he relented, climbing down into the pit and kneeling. He’d ruined Libby’s life with his carelessness; he wasn’t about to risk his son’s.
‘Are you ready?’ he called to Jack.
‘Right!’
Blood pulsing through his head, Jack strained to work the lever; his whole body jarred as Will hammered the cross-brace. The log barely moved.
‘Have to give it more than that,’ Jack called.
His father smacked the sledgehammer against the weight-bearing wood.
‘Look out! It’s coming down!’ Jack shouted, powerless to stop the log from falling. He felt the ground vibrate beneath his feet. There was a stifled cry, a soggy crunch as the log abruptly canted down into the sawpit, then silence.
Jack froze for a moment, then, gathering his wits, looked over the edge of the pit. His father had managed to throw his upper body partially backwards, avoiding injury to his head, but the log rested on his torso, and the eyes that stared up at Jack were lifeless. Blood trickled from the corner of Will’s mouth, and spread in a stain from where the log had crushed his chest.
Arnold squatted in his hideaway. Fashioned from flattened ground ferns, it had a natural canopy of lemonwoods, and it was where he kept his stash of grog. My God, he’d needed a drink this morning after the night he’d had in Hokitika. He’d taken a load of wood to Haworths, the timber merchants in Gibson’s Quay. The ‘quick drink’ in the Golden Age Hotel had been his undoing. He’d found both the ale and the barmaid, Anne Gilpin, to his liking. One he’d had too much of; the other, uppity cow, not nearly enough. She’d shown him the door when he’d tried a quick fumble of her bubs.
He took a last swig of whisky, then hid the bottle back among the ferns. Making his way out of the bush into the clearing, he was struck by the silence. No hammer blows echoing, no rasping squeal of the saw slicing its way through a log. Then he heard it — harsh, gasping sobs coming from the sawpit. He saw the log angled into the hole. He started to run. ‘Ah, Christ, no!’ he cried, coming to a stop at the edge of the pit and peering down.
Jack was there, squeezed in beside his father. Tears streamed down his face. ‘He’s done for, Arnold. He’s dead.’
Arnold swallowed rapidly, keeping down the whisky-laced breakfast that threatened to come rushing up his gullet. He jumped into the pit. ‘You pull him while I try to prise up the log.’ He grabbed a brace that had fallen to the bottom of the pit and rammed it under the log.
‘For Chrissake, pull, Jack!’ he muttered, pressing down with all his weight but barely lifting the obstruction. Sweat poured down his forehead, stinging his eyes, and his heart was near to exploding in his chest. ‘Can’t hold it much longer,’ he grunted.
Jack pulled, his mouth pressed into a thin line of determination, and finally managed to inch his father’s lifeless body out from under the log.
The end of the log smacked onto the ground as Arnold dropped the brace. He flopped against the side of the pit while he gasped for breath. Then he heard a harsh keening, more like the sound of a wounded animal than a human. Arnold looked over the log at Jack, still holding his father, his body shaking with his sobs.
‘C’mon now, Jack,’ Arnold said quietly. ‘We have to get him out of here and back home. You have to be strong, boy. I can’t do this on my own.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Jack shook his head from side to side. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help it.’ He moved from under Will, brushed a sleeve under his nose, and stood.
After lifting Will from the pit, they used a tarpaulin as a stretcher.
It was a long trek home through the bush. In life Will had been a big man; dead, he weighed a ton. Jack had inherited his father’s height but not yet his bulk, and it was Arnold who bore the brunt of the load. His arms ached, his steps became shorter, but his relief at sighting the cottage was mixed with dread at having to break the news to Will’s wife.
‘Wouldn’t have been too nice a sight for you, seeing your father killed like that,’ the constable said the next day as he examined the accident scene.
Jack sat with his shoulders hunched. ‘Wouldn’t have happened if there’d been three of us to move the braces like there should have been.’
‘Oh?’ The constable’s gaze flicked to Arnold, then back to Jack.
Arnold flinched at the boy’s words. But how was he supposed to have known what was going to happen when he took off for a quick drink? And if Will had taken Jack’s advice and bought a steam engine to work a circular saw, he wouldn’t have been down in the pit in the first place. ‘I was off in the bush looking for Mrs Budd’s cows,’ he said, almost believing the lie in his desire to shed his guilt.
‘Did you find them?’ the constable asked.
‘I …’ Arnold trailed off, his mind blank.
‘Yes,’ Jack said for him. ‘They were in the paddock last night.’
Arnold heated as Jack looked at him. He was sure he saw a glimmer of suspicion in the boy’s eyes.
‘How did you manage to round them up and get them back there so quickly?’ Jack asked.
Arnold squirmed under his accusing gaze. The boy had stumbled on him once when he’d been off in the hideaway having a tipple. He’d shoved the bottle into the bush when he’d heard him approaching, but Will had never mentioned it and he’d never been sure whether or not Jack had seen it.
‘In truth,’ he said, thinking rapidly, ‘I gave up on finding them and came back to the mill. Didn’t want to be gone too long, you see. After we took your father home, I was out in the yard and I saw the girls coming back on their own. Y’know how they do, Jack?’ He gave Jack a rueful smile, not giving him time to answer. ‘So I just herded them back into the paddock and shut the gate.’
‘I’ve heard of them doing that,’ said the constable. ‘Grazing elsewhere and, regular as clockwork, home they come for milking. You were lucky, mind.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Toot.’ The constable pointed to a thriving tutu bush. Its plush green leaves were heavily scored with creamy thick veins; withering black berries hung from long-stemmed tendrils. ‘Those berries might be all but dead now, but they’re still lethal. Cows get drunk on them, then blow up with the wind. Kills ’em.’
‘Oh? Well, as you say, we were lucky …’
‘I’d best get off and leave you to it,’ the constable said, adding in an undertone to Arnold, ‘You’ll want to clean things up a bit, I reckon. You’ll not be needing a reminder like that every time you go down the pit, will you?’ He glanced over at the sawpit. Part of the wooden gantry had collapsed when the log had fallen, but the side that was still intact was covered in rust-coloured patches where Will’s blood had stained it.
‘I’ll do that.’ Arnold walked away, leaving Jack to see the constable off. He was eager to see the back of the bugger. Coppers made him nervous with their poking and prying.
The minister finished his third cup of tea, placing the cup and saucer on the table. ‘Well, I’ll be off for now,’ he said to Sylvia. ‘And you only need say the word if you think of anything we can do for you, Mrs Budd.’
Sylvia got to her feet as a knock sounded at the door. She saw the minister out, answering the knock at the same time.
‘Finished inspecting the mill, have you?’ she asked the constable, who stood on the veranda.
‘I’m satisfied that all’s in order, Mrs Budd.’
‘There was never any doubt it was not,’ Sylvia said, more curtly than she’d intended. But there had been so many callers today her head was spinning. She couldn’t believe Will was gone. She knew it to be so, but in her mind he was merely down at the mill, and any minute now she’d look up and see him walk out of the bush, smiling as Libby ran to meet him.
She looked at Libby, sitting on the veranda steps as she’d done yesterday after Will had left for the mill. She’d stayed there an age, her gaze never straying from the entrance to the track, before getting to her feet and running toward something only she could see. Sylvia should have known then that something had happened to Will.
The constable patted Libby’s head, as one would do to a much younger child. She didn’t move a muscle.
‘Taken it badly, has she?’
‘She’s been sitting there for hours now. I’ve not been able to make her move.’
Libby made a sudden jerking movement, toppled off the steps and began shaking before Sylvia or either of the men could get to her. Sylvia sensed rather than saw their shocked expressions as urine soaked through Libby’s skirt.
‘You mustn’t be alarmed. We just have to see she doesn’t harm herself,’ Sylvia said, kneeling and cradling Libby’s head on her lap. ‘For pity’s sake, hold her arms,’ she snapped, as the men looked on feebly. She was thankful for their presence when they finally leapt into action, one of them steadying Libby’s arms, the other her legs. The fit went on for longer than usual, the spasms more violent, all the while saliva from Libby’s mouth frothing into foam.
‘Would you carry her inside for me?’ asked Sylvia once the fit had eased. She led them to Libby’s bedroom.
‘I had a cousin once with the same affliction as your daughter,’ the constable said after Libby had been changed and tucked into bed and Sylvia had made yet another pot of tea for him and the minister. ‘Kept taking fits, though he could speak well enough. They put him into an asylum in the end. Best place for him, the doctor told my aunt. He kept hurting himself. It’s not for me to say, Mrs Budd, but perhaps you might think on doing the same with your girl. She’ll be a handful now you’re a widow woman.’
‘I’ll not have her put into a place like that!’
‘It’s a thought, Mrs Budd,’ the minister said, his red fleshy nose twitching with helpfulness.
‘Asylums are for mad people. My daughter is not mad. And now, if you please, I would like to tend to her.’ But for all her protests to the contrary, Sylvia couldn’t help but wonder if there was some merit in their idea.