11

I rode up to Gowrie Station and saw a rough coffin lying on the back of a dray outside the homestead. I presumed Pearson was inside. The driver climbed up to his seat, picked up the reins. The body was headed to Bourke, and by the time it got there it would be on the nose.

Henry Peyton, the overseer, had rounded up half a dozen blokes who looked a bit resentful as they waited for me under a peppercorn tree. All of them were familiar, just ordinary men, hard workers, liked a laugh, born to the wool districts. One at a time, I took them over to the mess and we took a seat at one of the tables while the cook cleaned up around us.

‘Name?’

‘Clarence Hooker. I live on Gowrie and was born on the tenth of May, 1881, in Bourke.’

‘What happened last night between Tom Fletcher and Michael Pearson?’

‘We was having supper and sitting just over there,’ he said, nodding at a long table beside a window. ‘Just talking, bullshitting, you know what it’s like. Girls came up, as they usually do, and we got to talking about who was the prettiest in the district, who we’d like to have connections with, just bullshit we’ve slung a million times. Beavins reckons Nessie Kirkbride had been the best-looking in the district, but now that fell to Sally Gilmour.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘Mrs Fletcher’s nurse. She don’t go out much, but when you get a glimpse of her, you won’t forget in a hurry. Yeah, then Pearson said Sally was a stuck-up bitch and that Nessie was too. Reckoned she got what she deserved. Women should know their place and shit like that. When he started on we just drifted away.’

‘How did Tom Fletcher find out what he said?’

‘Somebody musta told him. Wasn’t me. Later we was over at our quarters, just having a smoke on the verandah before going to bed, and Tom Fletcher comes barrelling across from the house, walks straight up to Pearson and punches him. Just slam, in the face, one punch but a hell of a lot of power in it. Pearson goes down, bangs his head, eyeballs rolling around, all crazy. Fletcher walks away, back to the homestead.

‘He’d done some damage all right. Pearson wasn’t coming to and Beavins said it wasn’t right, that Pearson had been minding his own business and had no warning. He and Maroney went to Mr Peyton about it and Peyton went up to house and that was it, nothing happened. Some of the fellas said that wasn’t right, Pearson was still out to it, so they sent a rouseabout for you and the doctor.’

‘You went to the dance with Pearson?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, and I don’t know nothing about the Kirkbride killings.’

‘Rightio. Send Beavins in, thanks,’ I said, putting my pencil down and stretching my arms.

‘Where’s Tom Fletcher now?’ Hooker asked as he got to his feet.

‘On his way to Bourke under escort.’

‘Pearson never said it to his face. He was a mean bastard but he wouldn’t do that.’

‘Who do you think repeated it to Tom Fletcher?’

‘Has to be Beavins.’

‘But Beavins was Pearson’s mate. Why would he want his friend in trouble?’

‘’Cause he hates Tom Fletcher. Most of the fellas do. His father’s all right, but when Tom takes over, if he ever does, we’ll walk off.’

I’d never heard this before. ‘Why do they hate him?’

‘’Cause he’s a greenskin … like you, like Jimmy Kirkbride was. Sons of rich men who have it easy, who think they know better than the working man. Everything falls into their lap easy like, and then they tell us what to do and take our women while we’re busy working.’

‘Tom Fletcher has been courting Nessie Kirkbride for years, not out tomcatting.’

Hooker stabbed the tabletop with a callused finger. ‘I know for a fact he’s been with Polly Jennings.’

‘Every man in the district has been with Polly, so that’s neither here nor there.’

Hooker gave a thin smile. ‘Jimmy Kirkbride got what was coming to him. Better watch out the same doesn’t happen to you.’

‘You threatening me, Mr Hooker?’

‘Never.’

Beavins was next. He was a handsome fellow with a fulsome moustache, strong arms and a look in his eyes that said he’d be tough to bring to heel. I asked him why he repeated the insult about Nessie Kirkbride to her sweetheart. He looked down at his hands, glanced over at the door, a half-smile on his face, shuffled his feet.

‘Pearson would be alive if you’d kept your trap shut.’

‘Pearson would be alive if Fletcher had had the guts to give him fair warning. Pearson liked a scrap and he’d have done all right too.’

‘Would have lost his job,’ I said as I scribbled my notes.

‘For punching the boss’s son, yeah, too right he would, whether or not the boss’s son deserved it.’

I looked up. ‘Why did Tom Fletcher deserve it?’

‘Not saying he did.’ He was breathing heavily now, swallowing, his mouth dry.

‘Why’d you tell him? Poor man just lost his girl and you go and repeat some foul comment about her that helps no one.’

Beavins said nothing, looked at the door. Someone was using a meat cleaver out the back, thumping it down like a guillotine, again and again.

‘Did you see Nessie or Grace Kirkbride at the dance in Larne?’

‘No, I already told those dicks I didn’t see them,’ he snapped. ‘Saw Jimmy Kirkbride with his tongue halfway down the throat of Sally Gilmour, but.’

I noted that down.

‘Gonna charge me?’

‘Can you think of a reason why I should?’

He sneered and I let him go. I interviewed the two others, who each corroborated the version of the king hit to Pearson’s head, with no warning. Maroney was furious about it. Said it was cowardly, called it murder and muttered that Tom Fletcher would not be welcome back on Gowrie.

‘Given it’s his home, that’s going to be a little hard to get around,’ I said.

‘He’ll be going to gaol if all is right with the world.’

He probably wouldn’t go to gaol, but I said nothing. I was a greenskin, no matter how mucky and drunk I got, but what surprised me even more was all this workers versus bosses talk. Maybe Joe was onto something. Shearers could be a handful and weren’t shy about asking for what they considered was theirs. Back in the ’90s they had the woolgrowers by the short and curlies. But in 1907 all station hands had a twenty per cent wage rise and a cap on hours, and now Fisher was a Labor prime minister, they were fed and housed – what more did they want? Didn’t want to see a greenskin kissing a girl they considered theirs, by the sounds of it. Well, that was the way of the world, and they could shut their eyes if they didn’t like it. Out here it was every man for himself.

But I made a note of it.

~

On my way back to Calpa, I saw a small figure ahead of me, scrawny and unsteady, hand on a tree trunk holding himself up.

‘You right, mate?’ I asked.

Long, scraggly white beard, trousers mere shreds of fabric, held up by a bit of twine around his waist, one eye missing, just a sunken mess where his eyeball should have been. He carried a blanket roll on his back with a dented billy hanging from it.

‘Good morning, Officer,’ he nodded. ‘Could do with a drink, if you have spare?’

I dismounted and unstrapped my waterbag and filled his billy. ‘You don’t want to be out here without water.’ He drank noisily and I poured some more. ‘Where you headed?’

‘Calpa,’ he said, wiping water from his beard.

‘Not far now. But you won’t last long if you don’t get yourself a waterbag or two, won’t be anything but bones in the dust.’

‘God will provide, you see. He sent you along when my need was great.’

I couldn’t say I felt the hand of God shoving me along, but no point arguing with a God botherer. I took his name and the address of his next of kin. Just in case.

‘Thank you, Officer. You see? His Spirit is working through you, even in these dark days.’

‘Why are they dark, Mr Doolan?’ I said, strapping my waterbag back onto the saddle.

‘Evil stalks the land.’

Normally, I took no notice of this sort of talk. Some swaggies were mad as cut snakes, some were liars, but they had a kind of bush network. News travelled quickly, and they knew things we were just waking up to.

‘Evil gets around, mate,’ I said, mounting my horse. ‘What have you heard?’

‘Children murdered, not far from here. Heard about it in Cobar, from a fella that reckons he knows who did it.’

I whipped out my notebook. ‘This fella, did he have a name? Distinguishing marks, anything like that?’

‘I wanted to pray with him for these children, but he said they were blacks and not worth his prayers. The Lord will avenge these poor souls but we must pray for them, I said, as the Lord instructs us to, the prayer of the righteous man has great power and the Lord will—’

‘Where did these children die?’

‘Wilga Downs, east of Cobar. He said a squatter drowned them in the Wilga Creek, caught them stealing yabbies, so he drowned them. My acquaintance was putting in a fence and he saw it happen.’

I nodded, jotted down the details. I’d wire them to Cobar and leave them to sort it out. They’d go out to Wilga Creek, nose around and put it in the too-hard basket. This shit happened everywhere, and we all looked the other way, even if we were staring right at it.

‘Rightio,’ I said, tucking my notebook away. ‘Safe travels.’

‘Where are you stationed?’

‘Senior Constable Augustus Hawkins, Calpa.’

‘Good day to you, sir, and God bless the new king.’

~

On return to the station, I was nearly felled by the stench of the dead sheep still rotting away in the river. I had a couple of strong coffees, stripped down to my shorts and pulled on my wellingtons, found a sack and a pitchfork and stuck a fag in my mouth, letting the smoke waft around as I waded around the carcass, fishing out bits here and there and tossing them onto the bank. There were a lot of beer bottles too. When Larne had a party, they tossed the empties in the river and sent them down to us.

I couldn’t stop gagging despite the cigarette. My mind kept going to the three dead black kids floating in Wilga Creek. I filled the sack and dragged it part of the way back to the station. I’d get a trooper to dig a hole and bury it.

I put a kettle on to warm up water to wash in, then I heard footsteps. I emerged to find Denning and Baines in my kitchen.

‘Been for a swim?’ Baines said.

‘We’re going to interview you now,’ Denning said.

‘You’ll have to wait while I wash and dress.’

I knew that the copper who discovered a victim had to be interviewed, but it should have been done by now. I dressed, heard Lonergan banging around in the front station, took a seat at my kitchen table, lit a cigarette and waited for the formalities to be over with.

Baines’ plump face and disingenuous expression hid a crafty mind. Useful for a detective, I expected. Denning looked like a hanging judge. If he had the brains, I mused, that was where he’d be. I looked like a bush hermit and smelled of dead sheep.

‘Heard Tom Fletcher killed a man with one punch last night,’ Baines said. ‘What does your lingua franca say about that?’

‘Says that the dead man should have kept his trap shut.’

‘Or it says Tom Fletcher’s got a nasty temper and can do some damage when he wants. He had a go at you, and I reckon we should take a closer look at him.’ Baines glanced at Denning, who was reading something in his file. ‘Can I see the witness statements?’

‘Gone to Bourke.’

‘What set him off?’ asked Baines.

‘I don’t think it has any bearing on your investigation, so can we get this over with? I have some chores to be getting on with.’

Denning opened his file and turned a page, appeared to read it, and then put it down with a short nod.

‘You’ve been here since July 1908, three years – is that correct?’

‘It is. Sir.’

‘Says here you were a captain in the New South Wales Mounted Rifles, as we know. You served with distinction, rose through the ranks quickly, mentioned in despatches several times for gallantry under fire.’ He nodded and raised his eyebrows as if he couldn’t imagine me being gallant under any circumstances. As a matter of fact, neither could I, and I’d completely forgotten the where and why and how. ‘Then badly wounded with a long convalescence.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You have been described as a heavy drinker, unstable, a loner who can be heard screaming at night.’

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

‘Constable?’

‘Every man in the Western Division drinks heavily. I do my duty as a serving mounted trooper and I am on good terms with all the population.’

‘Screaming?’

‘Nightmares. I’m sure you have them too. Sir.’

‘Impertinence will get you nowhere.’

I shoved the ashtray across at Baines to catch the ash he casually let fall on my kitchen table. Denning consulted his papers, cleared his throat, then glanced at me again. His pasty, sunburnt skin was covered in beads of sweat like smallpox blisters.

‘It’s been a long, slow decline since the glory days of South Africa, hasn’t it, Hawkins?’

‘What does this have to do with the deaths of the Kirkbrides?’

Denning closed the file, clasping his hands and placing them on the file. ‘I understand you wanted to marry Miss Flora, but Mr Kirkbride refused, and you’ve been in a rage ever since, nursing a serious grudge against him and his family.’

I looked between the two of them, my skin prickling at unseen danger.

‘What have you to say to that?’

‘It’s not true. I never spoke to him about Miss Flora, nor did she and I talk of marriage. We were friends, nothing more.’

‘Are you saying Mr Kirkbride is a liar?’

‘Yes, in this matter.’

‘He says you were after his property and so wanted to marry his daughter.’ He paused. My pulse was rising and getting a decent breath suddenly became hard.

‘Miss Kitty Ryan says you were not visiting her after the dance. That you were not at her home that evening. That she doesn’t know where you were. She says that, although friendly, there was nothing more to your relationship than that.’