19

I slept at the Royal again that night, a bad night. A wall of flame, a roaring, angry beast, rose before me, towering into the darkness, and then the scream, high-pitched, cut short. Nessie’s shattered face and a bayonet cutting my chest to ribbons, and I jolted awake, confused as to where I was and if I’d actually screamed or just dreamed it. But the dream that came at me again and again, charred wings beating my face, was when I tried to scream but struggled to part my lips, and would wake sweating as if I’d been in front of that wall of flame.

I couldn’t stay at the Royal another night. No matter what anyone said, I knew waking to the sound of a screaming man was not pleasant, so early next morning I rummaged about in the stable loft and found the station tent. I wandered along the riverbank north of the station until I found a reasonably secluded space where I could sling a rope between two trees and drape the canvas over and peg it to the ground. I laid another roll of canvas out inside the shelter and placed a bedroll in the middle, then added matches, a lantern and a waterbag and I was set. The end of July and another month of winter to go, but I’d be warm enough.

~

After breakfast, Lonergan and I met up with Frosty and continued our search for Beavins. With no tracks and no idea where he was likely to go, all we could do was circle Gowrie, making the search area wider and wider until we found something. It was the way we usually searched for lost people. Most we found, some we didn’t.

Flies were up and about, crawling all over our faces, infuriating the horses. The sky had a brassy look to it, which often heralded a dust storm on the way, and with a westerly I reckoned we were for it. Not good during lambing.

On we plodded through the decimated scrub. Rabbits were bad out this way, and instead of looking for a man Lonergan and I were both watching the ground ahead for rabbit holes which our horses could step in and damage themselves.

‘Smell that,’ Frosty said, turning to the south-west.

‘Death.’

‘Too much for rabbit.’

We dismounted and secured our horses, then I smelled it too. It was bad, retching bad.

‘Lonergan?’

‘Sir?’

‘Don’t just stand there spewing your guts up, walk towards the direction of the smell. Dead man’s not going to hold up a sign for you.’

‘Sir.’

He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, clamped it over his face and marched towards the source of the smell as if he were facing the Russians in the Valley of Death. Frosty and I followed at a distance.

We saw a man lying facedown on the ground, dressed in a filthy stockman’s shirt. His hands had clawed the ground and it looked like he’d pulled himself out of a shallow grave, as his legs were still covered in soil. He’d been beaten, as his head was bloody, flies all over the wounds.

Lonergan stood looking down at him.

‘Feel for a pulse, for fuck’s sake,’ I yelled at him.

He crouched down and lifted the man’s wrists. ‘Still alive, sir.’

I rushed over and we pulled at him gently, freeing him from what looked like a shallow grave.

‘Lonergan, go to Gowrie and get help. Frosty, get me some water, quick, then go with Lonergan, make sure he doesn’t get lost.’

I managed to turn Beavins onto his back. His face was a mess of clotted blood, pus and black rotting flesh. I dribbled the water over his bloodied, split lips while helping him sit, then tried to get some down his throat. His eyes fluttered so I kept pouring, not too much, but enough to wet his mouth and cool him a little. That Beavins was still alive said a lot for his toughness.

To stop him drifting off I kept talking. Every time I felt him slacken in my arms, I’d shake him and raise my voice, dribble some water on his face.

‘Who did this to you, mate? Who was it? You owe them some money? Touch their girl?’

The stench of him was sticking in my throat, the blood and pus. By the looks of it, from what I’d seen in South Africa, he had blood poisoning. A raven watched from a nearby mulga tree, waiting for its chance. If Beavins had lain on his back, they would have taken his eyes by now, as they did with injured sheep.

‘Come on, Archie, stay with me. Tell me who bashed you.’

His lips moved, but no sound. I told him a few stories of Africa in an effort to keep him tethered to my voice, shaking him every so often and rambling on, getting the odd curl of his lip, blink of his eye. He was holding on, tough as nails, so I kept it coming: racing our horses along the beaches near Cape Town and taking them in the surf afterwards, the Zulu warriors dancing in leopard skin and drinking blood, the whorehouses of Port Elizabeth with women of every colour and shape to be bought for a pittance.

The sun bore down and the raven watched. When I stopped talking, a great silence surrounded us.

I began to think Lonergan and Frosty had met with an accident, but I kept dredging up the stories I’d told in pubs for years on my return. Soon the wind picked up. If I was right, we were in for a dust storm too. That’d be nice, holding a dying man while choking on bulldust.

After an eternity, I heard horses coming towards us. The raven gave up and took off.

‘Hear that, Archie? Help is on its way, mate, just hang on.’

I laid him down in the dirt, got to my feet and saw riders coming through the scrub, a stretcher strapped to a horse.

~

When we got him back to Gowrie several hours later, I was in need of a stiff drink. I think everyone was. The station was unnaturally quiet as the dust hung on the horizon, a looming wave of towering red dust. Sally Gilmour was on the verandah with, I assume, Mrs Fletcher, who was in a bath chair, covered up in a bright crocheted rug and watching the activity.

I’d never seen Mrs Fletcher before and couldn’t help but stare, curious to see the woman who’d had a long and scandalous affair with Bob Kirkbride. She was thin-faced with thick grey hair brushed and tied to the side in a pale-pink bow, her black eyes sharp beneath a furrowed forehead, watching everything.

I went up to pay my respects. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Fletcher, I am—’

‘I know who you are.’

Sally Gilmour stood behind her, expressionless.

Tom Fletcher came out and joined us. ‘Found Beavins?’

‘Yes, he was beaten and managed to survive for days out there until we found him. Tough man.’

‘He got what was coming to him,’ Tom said.

Dark tendrils of hair framed Sally Gilmour’s face and blew in the breeze, but she stood as still as a pillar of salt.

‘What for?’

‘For repeating what Pearson said about Nessie to me.’

I nodded to the end of the verandah and Tom came with me, away from the women. ‘He’s been savagely beaten. Did you—’

‘I’m on bail, remember? As much as I’d have enjoyed beating him, no, I didn’t.’

Henry Peyton approached us. ‘Beavins has just passed away.’

‘Damn it – he survives until we get there and then carks it?’ I said, wildly annoyed by his poor timing.

‘Often the way,’ Peyton said, hands on hips.

‘May he rot in hell,’ Tom said, with unnerving vigour.

Beavins could well belong in hell, but I’d wanted to know why he’d come to speak to me. And if Tom had beaten him to death, only Beavins would have known.

~

Henry Peyton told me Archie Beavins was paid the same as all the others, and in cash. What he did with it was his business, but most of the men banked what they didn’t drink or send home at the post office in town.

‘I can’t explain why he had a hundred pounds in his trunk. Two-up games, cards? They gamble heavily in quiet times, but Beavins wasn’t known for being any more stupid than the others. Now, Tindaree, they have a problem with men gambling all their wages in one night.’

‘He had the money wrapped in brown paper.’

Peyton shook his head. ‘Can’t help you, Gus. I’ll send it on to his mother. I think she’s in Nyngan.’

I was going around in circles. If Tindaree Station had a gambling problem, then gamblers had to get the money from someone. If Beavins was running a book, we hadn’t found it in his possessions. If he was cheating men out of their winnings it might have earned him a bashing. Questioning these blokes again wasn’t going to lead anywhere, but it had to be done.

I knew Beavins had a liking for Sally Gilmour and a hundred quid stuffed under his bed. I reckoned he was bashed for one of those two things, and it was my dreary duty to help Lonergan find out why, because no Sydney detective would come out here for the likes of Archibald Beavins.

~

Lonergan and I lined up the Gowrie Station men and questioned them together, but I made him ask the questions as it was good practice for him. But the men weren’t talking. They told us when they last saw Beavins and that was it. If he was in trouble with a gambling ring, they didn’t know about it.

‘Tits on a bull,’ Lonergan muttered when we were done.

Joe rode in and made a cursory examination of the body, then staggered away and retched.

‘Officially dead,’ he gasped. ‘Blood poisoning and blows to the head. Box him up and send him to Bourke. I’ll sign the paperwork when you’re ready, Mr Peyton.’

Peyton nodded, and as he walked off I pulled him aside. ‘Can you check your books and see when Beavins reported for work on the Sunday after the dance in Larne?’

‘He gave a statement.’

‘I know, I’m just cross-checking. The troopers who took the statements were inexperienced.’

‘He weren’t a pleasant fellow, but he weren’t a killer.’

‘Just have a look for me as soon as you can.’

He nodded and went off to get men to bang up a coffin as the first gusts of dust came through. Joe was in the shade of the peppercorn tree having a puke. I took my waterbag from my horse and walked over to give it to him.

‘I reckon Beavins’ wounds look mighty similar to the Kirkbrides’,’ I said.

He swallowed, wiped his face and nodded. ‘They do, insofar as it’s blunt force trauma. But I reckon he’s been punched, not bashed with a stick or a rifle butt. I mean, the skull hasn’t been breached, unlike …’

‘Three people in the district dead of head wounds within weeks of each other?’

‘Classic brawl injuries. Left eye is a mess, contusions and lacerations, cheek, mouth, all delivered with a right-handed fist. Leave it to the coroner, mate.’

And Corcoran reckoned I was a know-it-all.

‘About the other day, Gus – I’m sorry.’

‘No worries. It was wrong of me.’

‘Bad times bring out the worst in us,’ Joe said. ‘Nothing to do but sit around and brood or drink and then here we are, another tragedy. Seems we’re lurching from one to another.’

‘Yeah, but it’s going to be a bumper clip this year. Cheery news, eh?’

He managed a weak smile. ‘It’s an ill wind. Speaking of which, I want to get back before the dust hits. You finished here?’

‘Can you just wait a moment?’ I said, looking down the road to the Gowrie laundries. ‘I need a quick word with someone.’

I hurried down and found the maids bringing in the wash before the dust storm. I saw a girl I knew battling a billowing sheet, Sheila Stewart, daughter of Hector Stewart, the station blacksmith. She had mousy hair and a stocky figure, wore steel-rimmed glasses and a stained apron over a grey skirt.

‘Sorry to bother you, Miss Stewart – a quick word?’

‘What about?’ she said, glancing at me as she wrestled the sheet.

‘Were you working the day after the dance?’

‘I was on in the afternoon, but I can tell you now, we was all too stunned to get much done.’

‘Do you wash young Mr Fletcher’s shirts and trousers regularly?’

A fat old wash drab like a walking barrel came to the door of the laundry. ‘Get a move on, Miss Stewart,’ she screeched. ‘Dust won’t wait for you to be done gossiping.’

‘Yes, I do, and no, there wasn’t,’ Sheila muttered to me.

I wasn’t on official police business, so I walked away before I got her in trouble.

~

Joe and I rode back along the river under the only tree canopy in the area, the redgums and coolabahs.

‘Where did you find Beavins?’ Joe asked.

‘Crawling out of a shallow grave over by Peery Bore.’

‘Nasty. Why would they bash him?’

‘Joe, have you ever had a good gander at this district? A bunch of exhausted men working six days a week on isolated properties on the edge of the godforsaken. They’ve got nothing to do but drink, gamble and lust after the few women who work out here, and they settle their differences with their fists. That’s why it happened.’

The wind picked up, the treetops thrashed about and visibility dropped as red dust swirled. I pulled my bandana over my nose, tugged my hat down and squinted. Felix was shaking his head, uncomfortable in the gritty wind. I stopped and dismounted, shouting at Joe to keep going. I took my bandana off and tied it around Felix’s head to protect his eyes. Then we kept moving, head down against the wind, filthy and coughing. I took Felix to the station stables to brush him down and wipe out his ears and nose, all the while cursing Beavins for giving up.

People were stabling horses, stuffing cloth in gaps, shutting windows. It was going to be suffocating. Birds flitted about, frantically looking for shelter. Soon visibility would be zero. We were stuck inside, and after we’d completed the paperwork for Beavins, I spent the time stripping and reassembling all the guns in the armoury, cleaning and polishing belt buckles, boots, buttons, brass lamp bases and candlesticks. I was suspended but it was still my station.

Lonergan patched a tear in his shirt, gazed out the window, sighed, sewed on buttons, gazed out the window, sighed, polished his boots, gazed out the window at the red swirling dust. Lunch was followed by a nap and then, desperate to get out, I held a neckerchief to my mouth and nose, grabbed some whisky and went over to Joe’s, leaning into the wind, fine grit hitting me like buckshot.

I found Joe in his surgery with his own bottle of whisky already on the way down.

‘Nothing else to do,’ he slurred.

He looked the worse for wear, bloodshot eyes, puffy face. I didn’t know why Mrs Schreiber put up with us. But I supposed she’d seen a few things in her time.

Joe and I were old hands at oblivion, passing the bottle back and forth. The lower the level in the bottle, the looser the tongue. The past revealed itself in dribs and drabs, but was never spoken of in the sober light of the next day. Sometimes one or both of us passed out. We acted like it had never happened. Men didn’t talk about such incidents. We accepted it as our right, because being a man was unendurable sometimes.

Joe slumped across his desk as he handed me a tumbler, then with a trembling hand splashed some whisky into it. Outside, the wind howled, roofs rattled, the ochre-red air, thick as fog, raged about in a fury.

‘There’s your precious empire at work,’ I said, nodding at the window. ‘Every drop of sweat is blown away or shipped to England for their mills. What are we left with?’

‘There are some very rich men out here.’

‘Some very poor ones too.’

‘Who get paid because there is an empire. Without those woollen mills in Yorkshire, we’d still be in huts at Botany Bay.’

I followed the Wallabies. Joe was a British Isles man. That was just how we were.

‘Feels like I’m always down at Gowrie inspecting the dead or dying,’ he sighed.

‘You mean Beavins this morning?’

‘The overseer before Peyton took a marking knife to his throat, then Mrs Fletcher had her accident, then Pearson, now Beavins.’

‘You were here when Mrs Fletcher broke her back?’ I said, lighting up a fag. ‘How did it happen?’

‘Yes, it happened only days after I arrived from Echuca and I was still in shock from the look of this place. I didn’t know anyone, but I was put to good use. She just said she fell against a tree stump, had sharp pain and then numb. I knew when I got there she’d never walk again,’ he said, and downed a good inch of whisky at a quick gulp. ‘Getting her onto the stretcher and getting her back to town was a … job. Thing is, she was as naked as the day she was born.’

‘Naked? Out here?’

‘As the day she was born,’ he hiccupped.

‘She was with Kirkbride, though. Why didn’t he cover her before he went for help?’

‘He reckoned he panicked and shot off to get help. When we got her back to town, we brought her into my surgery and wired for an ambulance. She never cried, never complained. Well, she couldn’t really, given what she was up to.’

‘You reckon God smote her down in disgust?’

‘A grown woman her age carrying on with a man like that? God smote her down all right,’ he said, and refilled his glass. ‘Ended up in a private hospital in Sydney near her daughters.’

‘Mrs Fletcher?’

‘No, God,’ he said, and laughed so hard I thought he’d be sick. I wasn’t a pretty drunk, morose then asleep, but Joe was often a complete mess.

‘Nice girls, Maude and Anne. Statuesque, I’d call ’em. Married wool brokers.’

‘You met them?’

‘Mmm, they came for a visit once, arrived when I was busy doctoring away at their mother.’

I glanced out the window at the red haze hanging in the air.

‘Hester Fletcher didn’t want to live with her daughters, did you know?’ He lit a cigarette and shook the flame from the match. ‘Nope, she wanted to be back out here, to torment her husband, probably. He fixed up part of the homestead so she could come back. Has nothing to do with her, but he looks after her, doing his duty.’

‘Hell of a story.’

‘Will’s a good man, a good man. I know many people who say it’s more than she deserves for what she did.’

‘And Kirkbride?’

‘Pinched another man’s wife,’ he said, squinting at me and shaking his head at the enormity of the sin. ‘S’like stealing his sheep or his home. Just not done.’

I refreshed our glasses and we sat in silence for a bit, watching the sky and the closed doors of the store across the road.

‘You’d know about that,’ he said eventually.

‘I’ve never been with a married woman, or not knowingly.’

‘And Flora?’

I stared at him for a long moment. ‘Flora is not married, and nor have I had connections with her.’

He shrugged, swaying, eyes shut.

‘And you? You could have seven dead wives hanging on meat hooks somewhere.’

‘A bluebeard, eh?’ That set him off, laughing and rocking back and forth, then slowly he calmed down, wiped his eyes. ‘I am a bachelor, old man, and I don’t mean I bat for the other side.’

‘Perhaps you prefer sheep.’

And the conversation descended into filth, a particular brand of it often found in wool-growing districts. Sheep were basically unlovable beasts. Not like horses, dogs or even cows, so it was the sheep that carried our sins for us, all of our sins, while we rode on their back to a prosperous future.

~

The wind dropped. We peered out the window at a different world, a silent, eerie ochre-coated one. Without a word, we got up and went to the front door, opened it and went outside. Everything, Kev’s geraniums, the windows of the store, the walls of the houses, the cluster of mulga at the edge of town, all of it was caked in sticky dust.

I left Joe and walked over the powdery deposits to the police station. Even the river was a dirty orange. No sound – the birds’ throats were probably clogged with dust. I went straight to the stables and found the horses in reasonable shape, bit of a wash and an eye and ear clean and they’d be all right.

Kev brought the mail over while I was with the horses. A letter from my father, which was quickly despatched unread. A letter I’d written to Flora, unopened and returned, and a letter from Robert Kirkbride. He wanted to inform me that his daughter, Miss Flora Kirkbride, no longer resided at Katoomba. I would never see her nor hear from her again. And as I was a bounder of the worst order, I should simply shoot myself and be done with it.