LINGER AND DIE
by Neil Brooka
Part three (chapters five and six) of my steemit weekly(ish) serial
And for those who came in late, click here and check my blog to start from the start.
CHAPTER FIVE - EMPTY BOXES
"Jump. Jump, Miss Doe," came Morgan's voice from below the window.
Mary looked down. Every ounce of Morgan's being looked open, almost desperate with wild expectation as he motioned to her from behind a small cart full of what looked to be old cushions and hay stuffed sacks. For a second she hesitated.
"Are you decent, ma'am?" came a voice from behind.
It was Tulip.
Mary mimed the severity of the situation back down to the waiting cart. Morgan, eyes bulging, begged her to jump, but his mate was already tossing a canvas over the cart's cushioned contents. There was nothing to be done.
"Come in then," she said, closing the window behind her and leaning back to obscure the view.
"Well here she is – the woman with the mute memory."
Tulip's hand appeared around the opening door, motioning as a ringmaster might do toward a performing tiger.
"Mary?" came Mr Hutton.
When his eyes met hers he seemed to light up like a magnesium flare.
"Now, now, I mean you no harm. I only wish to know why you left us and I promise that nothing will come of it." One of Mr Hutton's hands snaked out to grasp her by the shoulder.
"Do you know this man?" enquired Tulip.
"I don't think so. No." Her face had set once again, to stone.
"Would I be able to speak to her alone?" asked the desperate man, turning to Tulip with his hands together in prayer.
"You would not."
Mr Hutton placed a single golden sovereign upon the wooden frame at the foot of the bed.
"What," said Tulip, “is that?”
"One of the previous tenants must have left it?" offered Mr Hutton.
Tulip took his time examining the old sovereign. "Where did you get this?" He was holding it up to his eye, examining the coin this way and that in the light. “This one looks real.” He turned upon Mary. “Is this what you took the cast from?” His voiced dipped to a murmur. “Must have botched the job though ...”
"I don't think you're catching my drift –" began Hutton, clearly confused by these words.
"Oh, I'm catching your drift you daft pratt and if you think I'll fall prey to a bribe ... Are you aware of my track record?" Tulip's face lurched upon Hutton's like a felled Ironbark.
"Pardon?"
"I say again; Is this your gold sovereign?"
"Of course it's mine," laughed Mr Hutton.
"Iron him square, lads," Tulip bellowed. He leant in to whisper in Hutton's ear: “I know about Campaspe you murderous cunt. You're lucky Lonsdale has your back.”
Boots in the hall erupted as two young troopers appeared standing before Hutton looking thoroughly uncertain in the duties expected of them.
"NOW."
Mr Hutton, white in the face,b-b-but'd silently to the troopers as they forced his hands behind his back.
"It looks to me like the coin Miss Doe had," said Tulip, “but I'll have to call upon Newcombe again.”
"I'm telling you, Miss Draper is with me. By god, you'll be sorry for this."
Tulip rounded on Mary, mouthing the word –Draper – in glorious satisfaction.
"Do you know this man? Is that your real name? Draper?" he said, shaking Mary by the shoulders.
"She's done nothing wrong, sir, and neither have I. I demand you return my money and release us both ..."
"Who do you think you are?" Tulip snarled, slapping the man square across the face. “BecauseMy name is William Tulip Wright, Mr Hutton, and you're nicked.”
"Let me go. I demand to see Captain Lonsdale at once. Damn it all go easy," he screamed.
Outside on the pave, Morgan and another lad, upon hearing Mr Hutton's protests decided to relocate Mary's means of escape to a small side street over the far side of the road. Parking in such a way as to keep an eye on the window – behind which Mary now stood – they watched and waited in soundless mock conversation.
Presently Tulip, followed by Mr Hutton in the hands of the two troopers, appeared around the frontage of the building.
"Now that's a sight, and right beside the press house," said Morgan's friend, referring to the fact that thePort Phillip Patriot's offices were the next building over from The Shakespeare Hotel.
"And I'll bet my left tit we'll not see a word of it in thePatriot," Morgan added in speculation upon the paper's editorial decisions.
"Who was that gentleman anyway?"
"Captain Hutton was squatting up north of the district," replied Morgan. “Didn't you hear of the trouble with the Campaspe mob? It's been doing the rumour mill well enough.”
"Was that him?" said the lad in leering wonder.
"They reckon he got too much political stick by it all," said Morgan. “Let it never be said that right-headedness will steer you clear on the squat. The story is that Mr Hutton had been at the forefront of a massacre backed up by a squad of rogue troopers. Apparently an entire clan was murdered at the borders of the Campaspe river. They say Hutton had his reputation so burned by the whole affair that he sold up his run not long after. Of course the news got suppressed so as Hutton could have a square chance of selling the land – intersects three clans of warring tribes not loyal to the white man, apparently.”
"Looks after his own," said Morgan's friend after a whistle and a nod toward the press house.
"Good old uncle Bob."
The two men watched as Tulip and his constables disappeared up the street with the still protesting Captain Hutton. Presently Mary's window opened.
"There's the signal," said Morgan, jerking his head to the handkerchief waving about in the wake of the law. With folded tension they fired up the horses and made the short turn back to the place they hoped Mary would land.
Leaning down through the window Mary eyed the cart pulling up once more. While his friend remained at the helm, Morgan leapt upon the road, loosing a sharp whistle between his fingers. A small boy – by Mary's guess to be around the age of ten – skipped up to Morgan. A few words were exchanged. The boy took something from the man and put it in his pocket while peering about the sparsely populated street. Morgan pointed out a spot further up the road. The boy nodded and skipped on.
Mary was just attempting to get Morgan's attention when – from the direction the boy had gone – came the crackling rapport of fireworks. As a Catherine wheel went spinning into the sky and the streetwalkers and shopkeepers looked up, Mary jumped.
Flour sacks stuffed to the gills with hay almost caused her to rebound up and out of the cart itself. As she found herself back in the air, her head collided with a heavy canvas sheet Morgan had thrown at the instant of impact. Nice and secure and under cover, she allowed her body to sink into the soft hay bags. The canvas popped and rippled above her in the cool morning air.
When Morgan had told her of the way in which it would be done, Mary had been intensely suspicious of his intentions. And so, she thought, had she every right to be. Had he heard the details of her arrest and seen an opportunity to plum the depths of her assumed wealth? Or was it simply a case of a happy go lucky 'business man', deeply entrenched in the criminal underworld of Melbourne, seeing something he liked and thinking nothing more of taking it?
Morgan had taken care of The Shakespeare's landlord – a man he had refereed to as 'Mr Short' – at his own cost, and had also arranged for the diversion. This, he had explained was not so much as an actual diversion, but to serve as an excuse for the local shopkeepers to use if questioned by the law.
Mary thought about her strange new friends as the cart swung and bumped beneath her. Morgan was the kind of person you get around virgin Merchant cities – profiting from this and that, taking advantage of a general lack of circulating currency to trade. But at the end of the day, Mary thought to herself, she did not particularly care of his motives. It had been a matter of habit she had become accustomed to, in the necessity of the protection of herself and her son. And now that it was just herself – with all this excitement to take her away from her grief – she found it easier on her conscience to take the waves head-on.
After a time the open sounds of the Melbourne streets closed in and she had the impression of shadows passing overhead. Not long after that she felt the cart come to a halt.
"I'll leave you to it then?"
"Thanks Franky," came Morgan's own voice, “what you got planned?”
"Another stray I might ask you to put up for the night. Would that do you all right?"
"A bad seed?"
"Pretty tough. I reckon he'll be up for some jobs. Hah! Won't have much say in the matter come to think of it."
"Well I've not got anything lined up," replied Morgan.
"No bother. I'm setting him up myself. I'll pay you for the room, like."
"He'll be no trouble by the law? I don't want her to have to put up with any of your immoral friends eh?"
They laughed together.
"No problems. My responsibility, straight up and down." Franky's voice disappeared back up the lane.
Fabric rippled over Mary who now found the sun drilling painfully into her eyes. When she was able to open them she found herself in a narrow laneway, a tall fresh wooden fence to one side; to the other, a number of even taller buildings. She guessed they were in a service lane for a street-front shop that now stood with its back to them. The second thing she noticed was the smell of freshly cut wood.
Jumping from the cart she found that Morgan had disappeared into one of the buildings before her. Stacked in its shallow porch, piles and piles of wooden crates, chests, wardrobes, bedsteads and coffins lay slotted together like some great confusing puzzle game. All of this was perched upon a thick matting of sawdust. The stuff was everywhere.
"Boxes. I make boxes," sang Morgan, kicking one of them as he passed. “Simple things, really, but in great demand. Especially these.” He patted one of coffins.
"Card boxes, tinder and match boxes, cigar boxes, money boxes. You see, the object, the target of my business is – "
Mary held one of her stowed sovereigns before him.
"What's this?"
"Payment," she said.
"I already told you – your character is payment enough for me. Those eyes look as though they've seen ... "
"What exactly is it you're after, Morgan?" Mary surveyed the strange surroundings. Maybe it was the presence of all of the caskets that gave her a new feeling of dread; the smaller ones especially disturbed her.
"I want to give you a chance," said Morgan, shrugging and scuffing his boot through the sawdust.
"I'd rather be locked up than be patronized."
Morgan took two steps up to her, tilting his head forward and digging his fists into his pockets. "Do you realize how sad you sound? And it's not even pathos. It's downright tragic foolishness."
"I think I'll be going now," she said. To where, she did not know.
"You think the bargain we made was a joke? I was serious: You tell me your story – once we find a place that's more conducive to such things." He opened his arms and spun around. “I'm pretty sure this is the place.”
Mary stood before him, a look of resignation firmly in place against Morgan's cheeky grin.
"Now come along and stop being such a hard head." Morgan lead her through a door to a small back-room office. One end of the room had a card table surrounded by a number of tall stools, the other held a small bar with shelves stacked full of booze. Morgan opened another door and Mary found herself looking out into an impressive furniture showroom.
"This is all of my dad's work. Stuff out the back's the cheap stuff he lets me sell to traders – and the more honest classes." He closed the door. “Take a seat.”
Mary sat upon one of the stools at the bar.
"And this," he said, pouring homebrew from a dusty bottle into a tall glass, “is my other modest operation. Cards and piss. I get to meet a good deal many interesting people.”
"No one interesting enough to tame Tulip?"
"Aye, old Tulip has a reputation of being as straight as an arrow when it comes to bribes and blind eyes. Of course what that means is that every single man that surrounds him now gets the benefit of such actions that would otherwise be incurred upon Tulip's unshakable moral compass. Hell, even the governor – even the superintendent might have to step carefully around old Tulip. Aye, he's an immovable rock in a stream, but the harder he stands the faster the eddies surge in his wake."
Mary took a sip.
"Legend is that he himself was a pretty bent man in his youth. I heard he was party to a gang of thieves operating out of Lincolnshire. He was lucky to escape the noose, but being an educated man and a charming fucker to boot, as soon as he landed on Van Diemen's Land he turned informant and gradually worked his was up to Chief Constable. He knows all the tricks – true. He has many informants – most of'em whores and most I'm privy to feed enough foul leads to keep him busy enough. The seeds I've sown will play into his own assumptions about your high tailing it out of this city."
Morgan poured himself a drink of something that looked like treacle but smelt like whisky.
"Now, Missy. I've told you of Tulip's exploits, now how's about you oblige me with yours to get that side of the bargain out of the way."
She played with her glass with a narrow expression to her features, focussing her resolve with each turn of light upon wood. Her thoughts were only interrupted by a creaking sound that took her a few moments to realize had actually been a human voice.
"Who's this?" it croaked.
They both stiffened.
"What've I told you about bringing home whores, boy?" the old man said.
The first thing Mary noticed of the man was his strong, bowed legs bulging out from a narrow waist. The stout boots, just like the man, looked like they had most of their weight on their outside edges. His stooped, stringy hair came down in front of his top-heavy chest and his arms, like two wire cables, whipped tightly by his sides. Copper veins clamped all the way up and around strong fingers that looked like they could easily crush a quarter inch plank into paper. His face had an almost Nordic quality to it ,with tight almond shaped eyes and a shiny dolphins fin of a nose. It was clear that he had worked hard all his life and now, she assumed, ran the showroom – judging from his well cut get-up draped over his block of a frame.
"It's a friend, dad.Actually, she's the mother of a friend, fallen on hard times. She's paid for a room up stairs."
Mary noticed he could not meet his father's eyes.
"Actually? Hah! Any time I hears that snake-oil word my bullshit rod starts a quivering and that's the truth."
"I'm telling you, she has paid her way."
"Why can't you conspire with each other out front then eh? Sit proudly upon your upholstery and let the world know of your great generosity."
"Please, father," Morgan said to the old man's wide back. The old man slammed the door and Morgan smiled to himself. “Jesus, and to think I still have the heart to be supporting him. This place is swimming in debt up to its gills, and this,” he picked up Mary's sovereign she had placed upon the bar, “this won't do. Your scheme has been rumbled. These imitation George's won't be worth nothing now.”
He did indeed know about her charges then. She wondered if he had heard of the accusation that she had killed the docker.
"But I suppose you have an answer?" she said, taking back the coin and flicking it into a blurred sphere.
"I can get them changed for you. How many more have you got?" His hand slapped it to rest back down upon the bar.
"Only as many as I could hide. I need to go up north," she said, breaking off the subject of coin.
"What you want to go up north for? There's nothing there but sheep and hardship." Morgan studied Mary's eyes, which had averted themselves from his gaze to wander back to the golden disk. “Ahh –” said Morgan, picking it up again. “Caught trying to escape to London ... Heading up north to – to steal another fortune again? Tch, tch ... the predictability of criminal behaviour.”
Mary looked at him with an angry fire upon her brow.
"You got a tip for me?" said Morgan, a sly grin creeping at her anger. “Was this here Hutton's doubloons? Is he a pirate or something is he?”
Mary snatched back the coin and Morgan reacted as if struck by lightening.
"Oh, I'm on to something, I knew it. Tell me; my mouth's watering." He place his elbows upon the bar and collapsed his chin atop his clasped fingers.
Inside Mary's mind an inner battle was raging between the four houses of necessity, instinct, rationale and caution. She needed help – better yet support. The young man before her was the only option. She wondered if he would be capable of torturing the truth out of her if she refused. If she did let him in on the gig, what would stop him from removing her from the equation all together? His greedy fingers told her one thing while the almost pathetic helplessness in his eyes told her another.
"Oh I like you. I like you a lot. Are you married?" said Morgan.
"Get fucked."
"I knew it. I knew it as soon as I set eyes upon you – that you were a diamond." Morgan bounced up off the bar, paced a little circle, then collapsed on a stool against the wall. His head lolled from side to side and he closed his eyes and clawed at his face. “Heavens oh god I think I'm in love.” And now he held his hands behind his head and locked his elbows in front of his face as if trying to block it all out.
Mary stood up and made for the door, but before she could so much as place her palm upon the wood he was in front of her and on his knees.
"I promise I'm on the level with you. Anything you want. Anything you want is yours. We – we can – please just sit back down and have another drink." He wilted before her in a way Mary clearly had contempt for. Seeing this he jumped back up, straightened his shirt, thrust his fists into his pockets and sloped to the bar, his mouth buttoned to control any dignity left in his open, emptied heart.
"Now listen here," began Mary, “If I tell you what I know and you cross me, I've got nothing. You'd get a puny reward in return, whatever it be, and I'd get the noose – assuming they pin the docker's death on me, which I doubt. Most likely I'd be put back to work on a farm or a factory and we'd both be left empty handed. But if you stay on the level with me – in control of your senses – you might find yourself in for a good speculation.”
"You can trust me," he said as innocently and freely as the wind, already looking ashamed of his former performance.
"But can you trust yourself? Because if I told you the whole story – the whole picture – my life wouldn't be worth a Scotsman's sporran."
To this, Morgan gently shook his head, mouth ajar, eyes back to dreaming. It became obvious that at present his mind had formed a wall to such thoughts. Mary knew the helpless look. She did not find it the least bit attractive, but if nothing else, it was at least reassuring. And she knew his heart would require constant stoking in the long run.
"If I told you even a little bit you might be tempted to torture the rest out of me. Have you ever tortured a lady? Have you ever killed one?"
"What do you think?"
You could never be sure.
"How many people, do you suppose, know about me and my forged sovereigns?"
"The whole town, I'd say. Only a handful know your face though."
Mary thought back to all the people she had encountered.
"What are you driven by, Morgan?"
"Adventure. Adventure, I'd say. Love, survival."
"How much would you kill a man for?"
"I wouldn't, unless to was to protect my own life, or my fathers. Or yours," he added with a grin that Mary seemingly missed.
"What if I gave you a thousand pounds?"
"A human life cannot be defined in monetary terms," he said.
"Rubbish. Any man can be bought. You can have all the time in the world to think, but given the opportunity – given the promise of a life of ease and plenty – you'd do it."
"You don't know me, ma'am," he said, shaking his head. “I've never conned no one but the British empire.” Morgan peered from the grubby window to the timber yard beyond. “Those boxes I sell. Do they look like they're full of anything to you?” And now he looked her fully in the eyes. “It's because I understand what drives most men and women – given the right circumstances. Lets say I lost all this up in smoke. Who can say what I'd do? But that's a question of survival and comfort and living within your means.”
Mary watched him drink down the rest of his muck. He had a strange wisdom beyond his years, that was for sure.
"You freed me in contempt of the law," said Mary. “Forgive me in saying so, but it gives me very little to go on, where your character is concerned.”
"If contempt is what you're talking about then I've got that in spades. The law, the greedy, those men in their blue-stone forts. What do you think those empty boxes represent?"
"But this sovereign attracts you. Hutton's pirate booty as you put it."
"Hutton is a murderous, cowardly cunt," said Morgan simply. “Same goes for the British Empire and the Agricultural Company all rolled into one. And the governor, the superintendent and that chief cunt-stable Wright ... I would receive great pleasure in watching you make a fortune from Hutton and his associates. I assume that is whom you fleeced your makings from.”
Mary allowed herself the time to absorb these words and the conviction behind them. She made her decision:
"What I'm about to tell you, only a handful of people have an inkling of. At the moment those would be Tulip and Mr Newcombe. If anyone were to find out the truth it would be the end of my freedom."
"Newcombe – the banker?"
"That's right. He came the closest to the truth."
Morgan leaned forward.
"Newcombe asked Tulip if they could be phony – fools gold, but Tulip told him the weight matched the volume to the ratio that matches gold. As you know, gold is much heavier than lead, so from performing a water displacement test it's is easy enough tell the difference."
"But this –" Morgan grasped the sovereign “– passed the test?”
"And then Newcombe suggested something else. Have you ever heard of a metal called wolfram?"
Morgan's vacant face said it all. It was obvious to Mary that he was no metallurgist.
"My father," she continued, playing about with her empty glass, “was a simple man. He worked as a miner and it was his son – my brother – whom he spent his fortune on in getting educated in the ways of metallurgy. This did not work out. My brother died of brain fever and all of father's investments and hopes were lost.”
"But he taught you, didn't he – your brother?"
"Something like that," Mary lied. “I was a very curious sister and I learned it all and more, without the knowledge of my father who would have nothing of it. I learned many interesting things – performed many – experiments. Give me lead and tin and I'll give you Shillings. Give me wolfram and I'll give you gold.”
"But the weights –"
"They may as well be the same."
"What about in price?"
"Wolfram is an impurity found alongside tin. It's worthless – that is to say, there is no use yet known for it. After I got transport for forgery – "
Morgan had already started a little dance about the room.
"– after I got picked out by Captain Hutton – from the women’s prison in Paramatta – I was told I'd go down with them on an overland expedition. He and a handful of other men were looking for greener pastures and I was told I'd be a baker and maid on one of their runs. Escape has always been on my mind and this was the best chance I'd had yet. So I started working towards our freedom."
"You," squeaked Morgan, voice rising to trembling falsetto, “are a diamond. Me – having a forger ... And a city like Melbourne where coin is so sparse. My good god in heaven hallowed be thy name.”
"I started off stealing musket balls and tin scrap. When we settled down at the Campaspe run I started to smelt in earnest. Soon I had enough shillings to run, but I needed to go further. It would take more than pewter currency to get smuggled out of this wretched land without the law knowing of it. With those shillings I managed to buy up what little wolfram there was to be sold. In retrospect I was lucky to findany – I had to pay off a shepherd to scour Melbourne tip-to-tail for the stuff, but once I had it – I could make gold."
Morgan was swallowing it.
"Now – if it pleases you – I shall make you all the shillings you need for my freedom. All I ask for is lead and tin and a place to work in secret – preferably back up north, at the arse end of nowhere. And eventually," she added with a well crafted submissive trailing off, “a ticket back home.”
A strange kind of a chuckle deep down in Morgan's throat, jolted his body with shocks as he squirmed in ecstasy and held out his hands to his new asset.
"If I help you get set up – " he began.
"Think of it as an investment," Mary cut in.
" – If I speculate on you ... So all you want is my backing?"
"In part." She leant across the narrow bar, darting her gaze between his eyes and his lips.
In the heat of the kiss something inside Morgan melted completely. When he came up for air, expecting his own ecstasy reflected back at him, a flutter of searching uncertainty passed between his eyes –
Mary seized a hold of his lapels and dragged him toward her, and Morgan thought of the subtle transgression no more. Behind them, a gayrat-at-tat-tat bounced against the door, breaking their embrace. Morgan held the glass to his face, looked at Mary as if he was doing everything within his power to control himself, and sidled over to answer the caller. Unseen, Mary's hand moved down to her side to grasp at a small, oval shaped object sewn into the lining of her dress.
"Franky!" cried Morgan joyously, craning his head to someone out of sight, “And who might you be sir?”
"Litter Caesar," replied the giant of a man, “at your service.”
"Franky's service you mean," said Morgan, turning to Mary. “We have visitors,” then back to Caesar. “I owe Franky a favour, but I'll have no trouble from you while you're here, got it?”
Caesar placed a giant hand to his heart, shot Franky a cheeky look and laughed a long slow sinister laugh that made Mary's neck prickle with heat.
A strange feeling of being completely out of control descended upon Mary's shot nerves that were already drained from the act with Morgan. It felt like riding a horse, she thought, bareback down a rocky mountainside with nothing but these thugs waiting to break her fall at the bottom. She downed the rest of her drink and filled up her glass in haste and wondered if and when Morgan might file into that gold sovereign – and of the violence he might be capable of when he discovered her lie.
CHAPTER SIX - THE POWDERED DOG
"Oh, heaven! Something horrible has occurred." The uncommonly pretty young man upon the stage held his head between his hands, squatting in extreme pantomime shock. “Captain Aubri, perhaps, is murdered!”
Kerosene-lit mirrors lined the walls of St. John's Tavern, casting all that sat at the smattering of rickety tables in tobacco-entwined shadows. Perhaps, of more concern to the young man – alone and vulnerable upon the stage – were the candles at the centre of each of the tables. Their wavering light gave the young actor unsolicited access to all those baffled expressions now playing about each of the patron's faces. With a mixture of the undeniable cuteness of Nigger – of the way the sleek bitch's talc-covered fur made her sneeze clouds of mineral powder – and of the bedrock of terrible acting, the occasional rare guffaw become gold to the performer's parched egos.
Johnny could only guess that any lack of protest from the patrons was down to the fact that they were all far too drunk to remember paying the extra upon their mutton and veg dinners. But what could they expect after only a week of rehearsals? Johnny wondered at it all, as he sat waiting in the wings with his fellow actors. Presently, every one of them seemed to be suckling hard at the necks of St. John's finest brew, to ease their nerves facing the shame they all felt in the thing.
"The dog wishes to draw me from the house; well I will follow him, and if poor Aubri is hurt I can return and alarm the village," proclaimed the young man.
Mr Bird sat delighted in the front row while Mrs Bird, preoccupied with her knitting, raised her head only to take a long draft from her glass of ale.
"The lantern ... Show me the way, little Dragon."
Johnny yanked upon the thin twine attached to 'Dragon's' collar from the opposite side of the stage and waved a piece of meat for the terrier as a lure. With all the skill to induce a drunken sigh of delight from the crowd, little Nigger grasped the small lamp's handle with her teeth and trotted over to Johnny to retrieve her treat. It was easily the best performance of the night.
The curtains closed to polite applause and Johnny took to the stage for his own attempt. There had been a week of this, but it was not so bad. True, the pay was the lowest of the low, but St. John's provided them with a free meal every night and board to boot. And then there was the thrill, not of the performance, but of being hidden in plain sight. Any time, he thought, a trooper, constable, or even one of the Onions brothers might walk in and recognize him. Then again, this would probably be the last place any of them would care to be seen either which way.
The crowd was mostly made up of lower-middle class couples; men and their bored wife’s itching for some entertainment. Johnny actually didn't mind the attention it gave him. Assuming he'd improve, it was something he might even get into enjoying. The applause at the end of the first show – yesterday evening – had been one of the most satisfying things he had ever experienced, even if it had been forced from the crowd's own manners.
The curtains opened and Johnny held his shovel, as did his partner in crime.
"The moon, the moon," began Nigel (another of Mr Birds pretty choices), “there is no other witness against us. The body is underground and –”
"Hush. Someone may overhear you," said Johnny.
"Pschah!" 'sneezed' his partner.
"I thought I heard footsteps approach."
And indeed he did. Heavy boots on the boards of St. John's threatened to stumble Johnny over his lines.
"No colours in here, boy," came a gruff voice off stage.
Johnny froze, eyes darting to the point from which the commotion had emanated.
"Shut your mouth."
It was a voice he thought he knew. Low, voluminous yet particular – with West Indian overtones.
Caesar lumbered out upon the stage, eyes yellow from an alcohol-scarred liver.
"This is a robbery. Any of you attempt in leaving their seats will get their chests stuffed full of shot."
Muttering erupted from the tables. Wooden chair legs groaned in the gloom. Someone laughed. Caesar fired a small pistol into the ceiling. Plaster fell. A woman screamed. Opening his long oilskin coat to reveal six more pistols – to go with the long blunderbuss in his other hand – Caesar bellowed at the mostly frozen crowd:
"I have six more charges and a blunderbuss primed for any more mischief. Now, shortly, Landry here, is going to take up a collection." Caesar turned to Johnny, referring to him by his stage name, presumably without recognition. Caesar thrust a Hessian sack into Johnny's clammy hand.
"Just imagine you are in church ladies and gentlemen. I want to see at least –"
Johnny brought the sack down over Caesar's head and screamed for his partner to use a spade. Nigel dropped it with a clang, but Johnny had already knocked the pistol from Caesar's grasp.
"Every man for himself," he screamed.
"– Johnny, you prick," came a muffled scream from beneath the bag.
Apparently Caesarhad recognized him after all. Johnny yanked the sack from Caesars head, his cover as good as blown.
"You should have stayed in the bush." Johnny picked up the pistol Caesar had dropped. “I had a good thing going you shit.” And now he bellowed with all his might. “All-righty. Change of plan, every one freeze,” he fired the pistol, “this is a robbery – again.”
And now there was a full-blown stampede for the doors. Women screamed and clawed at one another and men threw fists blindly as everyone spilled out into the street with calls of 'help, police.'
"I owe you something, don't I?" said Caesar, the shovel in his hands.
"Wait – I'm helping you, can't you – " but Johnny said no more. The spade bounced from his jaw with clang.
In the end it was Nigger's stinking tongue and little paws poking into his chest that finally brought him to. Caesar was sitting with his legs dangling from the edge of the stage; across his lap he held his blunderbuss. When Johnny made a move to recover himself Caesar pointed the gun square at his chest. Johnny groaned and lay back down. Caesar did not lower his aim. He seemed to be grappling with a thought.
"Little Caesar and Johnny Potato," came a shout from outside. “In the name of the law you are both are under arrest.”
Caesar took a pistol from his coat and blew a hole in the door from which the voice had come.
"What are you doing," groaned Johnny. “Do you want to hang?”
"You'll both fucking hang, you'll –"
Caesar fired another shot from another pistol.
"I had a good thing going here," moaned Johnny.
"A good thing is it?" said Caesar flatly.
"Come out, in the name of the law."
"No," barked Caesar.
Nigger growled and rushed to the door to release a volley of vicious yapping.
"Nigger!" Johnny slapped his leg and Nigger came.
"ROVER," screamed the voice. “This is Chief Constable William Wright –”
"Back away or I'll put a rivet in this mutts head," shot back Caesar.
One bullet was all it took from Tulip to set the rest of them off. Johnny felt Caesar's body slam down beside his own as the lip of the stage exploded into a cloud of splinters. Soon the air was nothing but a deluge of wood and glass.
"Well that didn't work," grimaced Johnny.
"Set it on fire. Burn the buggers down," came a voice from outside.
Through the blacks pits, where the windows had once been, Johnny could see shadows rushing about. It was time to exit stage.
"Mr Wright, might I suggest with respect, that under these dry and windy conditions –"
"Out of my way."
This was all the convincing Johnny needed. In a trice he was up on the stage, had lifted the hatch and was now lowering himself into St. John's cellars. "Where are you going?" he heard Caesar shout behind him.
"Two birds, one stone," said the chief constable as he smashed an oil lamp against the façade of St. John's Tavern.
Johnny, worming his way through the cramped cellars of St. John's, could hear Caesar behind him, wheezing from the threat of smoke. When he came to the door leading to the room possessing the only way out, he closed his eyes and pushed. If the door was locked they were done for. With a mournful screeching of wood on stone, Johnny barged his way through.
Usually a hotel will have its cellars directly under the front access, but seeing as how St. John's produced a lot of its own stock, the cellars were hidden away at the back. It was for this reason that Johnny knew the back access door would be shut up as secure as a safe. By the time Caesar stumbled into the small barrel-cramped room, Johnny had already set to work undoing his twenty year long sobriety stretch.
"Drink up", he gasped, “at least we'll know when the flames reach us – we'll go out with a good explosion.”
As well as a large supply of homebrew, St. John's was stocked with enough white lightning to send up half of Queen street into a raging firestorm. Prompted by the mournful groan of burning timbers and clanking bangs, Johnny crouched down to suck feverishly at the clear liquid.
"Git'tae fuck outta mah pish ye wee cunt."
Johnny found himself flung into the compacted earth of the cellar, a strong cruel hand under his arm. When he had recovered himself he found the door to the cold night wide open and a team of burly men rolling barrels out with alarming speed.
"Save the piss and we'll see this fire through lads," barked the proprietor in a slightly more understandable accent.
Only when Johnny was in the darkness of the wide Melbourne streets proper did he come to the conclusion that the owner of St. John's must never have witnessed a single one of the performances. That recognition alone would have been enough to get him shot, never-mind about the fire. Then again, perhaps the landlord had more pressing matters at hand. With so little currency in the new city, rum was often used as the chief bargaining chip. Often times it was used as pay, or reward such as would be offered for his and Caesar's capture. The fact that the cellar entrance had been locked meant that it had only been the value of alcohol that had saved them.
"Forgive me," pleaded Johnny, as he followed Caesar down the dark back streets. “I was a fool to leave you on that horse.” He reached for the back of Caesar's shirt. “Wait.”
Caesar swatted his hand away and said nothing. Just kept taking those long strides Johnny was having so much trouble in keeping pace with.
"Can't you see I was trying to help those blackskins?"
Caesar said nothing.
"Ended up being caught before I could lay a hand on either of them stinking men. A folly’s score, I admit."
Caesar turned a corner.
"You seem to have foundyour way all right," added Johnny weakly. “Maybe we could ... We'd make a good team you and I.” He felt like a fool even as the words shuddered from his gob.
And then he felt something more. As the adrenalin wore off it came at him in wave after dizzying wave. The sick welled up and exploded from his chest in one great pillar of porridgy gunk. Twenty years of boiled water and watered down grog had not done much for his tolerance.
When next he looked up, Caesar was jumping a sparse wooden gate – or had been. He couldn't be sure as his world spun and he stumbled forward. When he reached the gate he made a valiant attempt to jump, but only managed to drape himself over the thing. As it crushed into his belly he felt another round of chunks explode beneath him. The uncontrollable contractions finally worked him over the other side. He landed with a yelp that had not come from his own mouth. Eventually he worked out this sound must have come from Nigger, who had, apparently, wormed her way through the sparse wooden fence to dine on her master's sick.
"Wait for me," cried Johnny, crawling through his vomit toward a light that had spilled out upon the little lane he now found himself in.
There were voices – muttering, arguing voices – but he couldn't make them out. He had to get closer.
"What are you doing here?"
"It went wrong Franky. The plan fouled up."
"I'm busy. You know I'm busy – why have you come here?"
"Pleash," groaned Johnny who had managed to claw his way up to Caesar's waist, “we need – out of town. The gig's up.”
Caesar kicked Johnny away with a look of disgust as Nigger appeared from the darkness licking her lips.
"You boys are lucky, very lucky. I've got someone heading out tonight. How tall are ya?"
Someone grabbed Johnny by the shoulders and dragged him up with a grunt.
"It might be a bit of a squeeze for you, Caesar."
Johnny tried to focus his eyes, but everything was a blur.
"Come on ... Morgan's woman's already banged up. I'm sure she won't mind a few extras."
"You nail me in and I'll come after you, Franky."
Johnny thought this last threat had come from Caesar. Now the arms holding him were pushing him over into some kind of trench.
"Just get in. God damn Caesar, your man stinks."
Now something was blocking out the light – sliding over him.
"Git out of it, go on, get home boy with ya!" shouted a voice.
"She's a girl daggy," Johnny managed to mumble, “you leave her'lone.”
And then he passed out for good.
"Wakey-wakey. This is as far as I go."
With a shot of pain to his forehead, the world's aperture opened upon Johnny Potato's head, lungs and mind.
"I'm taking one of these horses back; the rest I leave up to you, ma'am."
"At least help me take the tops off of these other boxes," came a lady's voice with the indignant inflections of a Scott.
"It's not part of the deal."
Finally the man agreed and a few moments later Johnny found himself blinking up into a blinding hot summer's day, somewhere on the outskirts of Keilor.
"God, Jesus what's that stink?"
As Johnny's vision edged its way into action, he found himself staring up at a short man in riding pants and a heavily worn jacket. The man leapt upon his horse, doffed his cabbage-tree hat to someone behind Johnny and sped off down the shimmering dirt road.
All around them were sparse gum-trees interspersed heavily with freshly cut stumps and the dead-grey boughs of their ring-barked kin.
Before Johnny could get his proper baring, Caesar appeared before him, punching him hard in the shoulder and slapping his face.
"See what a nice man I am?" he teased. “Saved your hide, I did.” Caesar tuned to someone unseen, “and after all the times you stabbed me in the back and left me for dead.”
"Twice – I saved you twice already," croaked Johnny, still unable to focus properly. “From convict buggery and in showing you the way out of that burning fucking inferno.”
"Excuse me?" came the woman's voice again.
Before he could repeat himself, Johnny vomited all over Caesar's nice new boots. The negro repelled the hot potato that was Johnny, covered his mouth with his arm and gagged from the stench of the vomit encrusted wretch. Johnny's entire being had been stewing in his own filth for the duration of the journey. The simple wooden coffins, stacked three abreast, seemed to have aided in the fermentation process nicely.
"And what do you think you two're doing?" said the lady Scott that was Mary.
"Nothing, ma'am," said Caesar, hands raised. “A simple,” he retched again, “misunderstanding.”
"Well would you stop doing nothing and get off my dray?"
"I don't know what's happening," Johnny moaned, “please, would somebody please tell me what's happening?”
"Fucked if I know," the lady replied sharply. “All's I know is I never paid you boys to come along – and as far as I can tell, from the commotion last night, neither did you. So, practically,” she rounded upon Caesar, “it was I that did the both of you's a favour by not objecting to your tagging along.”
Johnny stumbled from the coffin, brow bunched to breaking point.
"And now, if the two of you wouldn't mind, I must be off to leave you to your own devices. I trust you'll, the both of you, hold your tongues of all this business and be done with it?"
"Nigger?"
Caesar's forearms rippled for the backhand Johnny was about to receive, but the little Jack Russell, having already bounded up from the road to rest in Johnny's arms, set something off in Caesar's heart that stayed his hand.
"Nigger," Johnny sobbed, “you followed us? Good girl, youare a good girl.”
Mary Draper flicked the horses with the long fly whip, and the dray wobbled into its geriatric, lumbering perambulations.
"Where are you headed," shouted Caesar, skipping up alongside Mary in the drivers seat, “and where are we at all, anyhow?”
"Headed up north. Got a job to deliver these boxes up ways."
"You? You're a woman. What kind of a lowlife leaves his work for a woman?" Caesar had his hands on his hips. “Won't you need help unload'in them for whatever scam Morgan has set you up with?”
"Scam? I don't know anything about any scam, but I'll take you as far as The Bush Inn. After that you can find your own way. Does that sound reasonable?"
"Our bridges are burned in Melbourne. I was hoping to maybe head down Portland way," Caesar said.
"Well that's too bad, cause I'm going north."
"What are you playing at, undertaker?" said Johnny, walking along with Nigger in his arms, lapping at his face.
"I bet she has something hidden in the rest of these crates." Caesar bounded up upon the seat next to Mary – throwing an arm over her shoulder and looking back into the caravan. When he turned back he was grinning like a mad man.
"Stop that," said Mary, winging out her elbow into Caesar's ribs, “stop it or you can walk.”
"What are you going to do about it little lady?"
"You really are a shameless brute," said Johnny with the earnestness of a child as he jumped up to Mary's free side.
"I'm just curious. Ever so curious." Caesar edged the horizon of his vision down Mary's bosom.
"Good heavens you stink," she said, flinching away from Johnny and finding herself back in Caesar's armpit.
"A cute one, she is," said Caesar to Johnny. “I bet she's dangerous too – poisonousness. I'd still like to try –” Caesar looked down. Ever so slowly – as if at the mercy of a tiger snake – he removed his arm from her shoulder.
Nestled at his crotch was a knife, its handle wrapped in Mary's white knuckles.
"You going to cut both of us then?" said Johnny, inserting little Nigger by her cheek for a nice big lick up the side.
Mary gave the little dog a scratch behind the ear, knife still in its original position.
"No need to worry," said Johnny, “you're in good hands, isn't that true Caesar? So tell us your name ma'am and where are you are headed. And those boxes back there ... Just whatis your business with the nefarious Mr Morgan?”
"It's exactly how it looks," said Mary, casting the reins before her.
Caesar scoffed and turned to crane his neck back into the darkness of the caravan's interior.
"Come on," he said, “it's plain you have contraband hidden away. The question is: what might warrant the shame of being hammered away inside a coffin?”
"You wait for the smell of the corpses to set in," replied Mary.
Johnny removed his filthy shirt and tossed it into his still open coffin. Nigger followed, her claws scrabbling over Mary's shoulder to nestle in Johnny's filth – to recover her strength from her long journey in pursuit.
"Like I said: I'll take you as far as The Bush Inn – out past Keilor. After that it'll be up to you to see your own way; west or south, I don't care which."
"This Morgan character," said Johnny, picking up as much as he could from the former conversation, “must be a no good spineless weasel sending a little lady out to do his dirty work don't you reckon?”
"Was he a no good weasel letting you loose from being bailed by the law?" said Mary, her eyes never leaving the undulating track before them.
"She's right," said Caesar to Johnny, “Morgan's a good man. True he doesn't like getting his paws wet, but he has a lot of savvy, and the money to back his speculations. Like with me,” Caesar adjusted his good clothes and removed one of his pistols for effect, “had no hesitation in backing my little venture. He certainly had no good prospective reason to smuggle the both of us out of town, did he now?”
"So what's your racket then," said Johnny to Mary, “and don't tell me it's dead bodies cause I'll smack you one if you do.”
"Mind your own business you catholic mutt," she replied, swatting a fly from her face and checking the hight of the sun.
Johnny opened his mouth and his scarecrow hairline contracted back in mock outrage.
"I-beg-your-pardon?" he said.
"Well I wasn't talking to Nigger, there."
Caesar turned, remembered the dog's name again and settled back down, still smarting somewhat from the hostility in the word.
"Oh this is good," he said. “I'm going to enjoy this trip I am. A nigger dog and a catholic dog. Well I've had experience of the latter being the truth at least ... Should have seen them this pay day – on their all fours – regurgitating their lunches. The fruit was so ripe it fell from their pockets. I didn't even have to ask for it.”
"Ah yes, little Caesar's modus operandi – mugging lush drunks. Such a noble one you are," Johnny said, watching the landscape creep by. “Read a bit about your exploits inThe Port Phillip Patriot,I did. You're a bit of a celebrity.”
"You want to go into business with me?" offered Caesar. “I don't suppose you've much of a future creeping the boards. You should have seen it, Mary. The worst thing I ever did see – and that dog – what in the hell were you playing at with that thing?”
"Not my fault if she likes me" replied Johnny. “I think they neglected her. Either way, she made her choice. Who am I to blame her?”
"You're not –" began Caesar, moving his attention back to Mary. “You're notselling bodies, are you?”
"I wouldn't put it past her," said Johnny, “What is it? Get them to sign over their life insurance with that pretty face of yours before having'em with a spade to the head? Or is it a misplaced foot on the stair?”
"That's cold," agreed Caesar. “You'd have to be a real iceberg to pull that kind of a trick.”
"I think the less I say the better from this point on," said Mary, smiling to herself. “Well, it's a long trip to The Bush Inn. Any of you boys can sing or tell a story?”
The two men did their best to ignore the question. Both of them stared off into the distance as if preoccupied in thought.
"You're the dramatic one, arn't ya?" she said, jabbing Johnny in his naked ribs.
"I can't recall any songs to mind this instant."
"Useless – the both of you. At any rate I expect you'll want to be feeding from my flour and stores. What have you both to offer for my generous transportation services then, if not entertainment?"
Caesar extracted his gun and Johnny's stomach sank at another unpredictable change in the negroes mood. But instead of turning the gun upon Mary, Caesar turned and fired to the side of the track, setting Nigger off upon another angry volley of yapping.
That night they ate well. The grey kangaroo Caesar had killed made for a decent supper. Johnny – using Mary's knife – had even pegged the skin to dry upon the frame of the dray. After they'd had their fill and Johnny had beaten Nigger for attempting to snap Mary's food as she ate, the three of them settled down to watch the fire and to count the stars along with their luck. Mary seemed happy enough with their efforts and so she reiterated her intention to take them as far as the last junction where the road split back south-west. It would take them down to Geelong and on to Portland where Johnny had it in the back of his head to find work as a farm hand. Or even bush ranging with Caesar if worse came to worst.
The three of them slept by the fire that night, Mary in a rug wrapped in a canvas sheet, the two men upon the warm earth. Johnny used some large sacks for a blanket and a fagot of grass for a pillow, and Caesar took his place beneath the dray.
"Well," concluded Mary, “at least we have that bitch to stir a ruckus should anything creep by the camp.”
"True that," said Johnny, tucking his sacks about him. “Not pleasant at night in the bush without man's best friend. Strange happenings – whisperings, human voices. I've heard on nights alone in the bush there arethings about. Animals not yet classified by learned men. Natives with unnatural ideas. And then there are the stories – of giant dingos and snakes as wide as a tall-man standing.”
"Leave it be, Johnny," replied Caesar through the night. “Leave it be.”
End of PART THREE.
If you liked it make sure to keep an eye on my blog, and check back next(ish) Sunday for PART FOUR.
Neil.