The Untold Read online

  Over the years, she had done her best to ward off Fitz’s advances. But sometimes she could not. He called it her wifely duty. Some nights she was saved because he was too drunk to scratch himself and for half the month she told him she was bleeding, which repulsed him so much he avoided her for another week again. So that left a week or a few days a month to evade him as best she could. She had learned from the women in prison how to synch her cycle with the moon and for years of managing this and Fitz she had never fallen pregnant.

  She could think of no worse thing.

  But then one morning she woke and Fitz was already on top of her. She knew it would be more punishing to resist him.

  Four weeks later she suspected she was pregnant. Five weeks later she was certain.

  It consumed her but she told no one. She even copped a beating from Fitz but still she kept it from him.

  Six weeks later, she was droving with Jack Brown.

  He was asleep in his swag and she went to him.

  Kissed his neck.

  She felt herself unfreezing.

  He woke and he did not stop her.

  In the morning he said, What took you so long?

  And she did not check herself when she said, Jack Brown, I do not want to die by Fitz’s hand.

  They were gentle with each other all day and then their days of riding passed in a haze. Two months later, on another ride she told him, Jack Brown, I am pregnant.

  Is it mine, he asked, or is it Fitz’s?

  I believe it’s yours, she said.

  With all her heart she wished me to be Jack Brown’s child. But all of her wishing could not make it true. She had deceived him.

  When the gang woke, they lit a small fire and made tea and dipped dried biscuits in sweet condensed milk. They saddled their own horses and rode them through the thick scrub in pairs. For sport, when they spotted a wild horse they would charge up behind it. If they could get close enough, one of them would grab its tail, which slowed it sufficiently for the other to make a short throw and slip a rope over its head. Then they would tie the brumby to the nearest tree until it had tired itself of kicking and bucking and then guide it on.

  Jessie paired up with Bill. They rode in silence for most of the day and Jessie was grateful for it. The day was almost spent and they were riding close through thicker scrub when Bill said, Miss, you may have guessed it, my name is not Bill—it is Layla, but no one here except Joe knows me as that.

  Layla is a girl’s name, said Jessie.

  Yes, miss.

  You are a good rider, Layla, or Bill, whatever your name is.

  Thank you, miss, but I’ve seen that none of us are as good as you.

  That’s just ’cause I’ve ridden longer.

  They ducked beneath the trees. Jessie was curious about how Layla came to call herself Bill. Where were you before you came here? she asked.

  Me and Joe were working up north on a station. I was working as hard as a man but sometimes even that is not enough. The station owner wanted me to herd his cattle by day and be his bed companion at night. But I did not want to, miss. And Joe was my friend, a real friend who looked out for me. We droved together and although he is not black, as you can see, he was young and neither of us was treated well there. And the station owner said that I must do as he said and he said that he owned me and I did not want to be owned. So I left with Joe, miss. We ran away.

  Layla— Jessie began.

  Please, miss, around the gang I want you to call me Bill.

  That night the gang tied all the horses they had captured to trees and they camped on high and uneven ground. They sprawled out on their backs and Bill pointed out a constellation and she called it Pleiades. All of them stars there are related. Can you see, miss, there are seven of them? One for each of us. They are almost blue and you will see that they are all moving in the same direction across the sky, all moving in a cluster. But we are a gang and all of those stars are sisters and they are being chased by one man. They are all running from him, but he will not catch them.

  Why not? said Jessie.

  He cannot, miss. That man there, he is locked in the sky.

  The next morning, they saw that more horses had gathered in around the ones they had caught. They did not have enough ropes to capture them but as they moved slowly back up the steep slope the horses followed and then, as if one of their gang had cracked a whip, all of the horses veered off at once, leaning their bodies sideways, far away and east of them.

  V

  October now. A month or more since she had gone and the only trace of the September winds and storms was a subdued whistling that came and went. Jack Brown’s horse hustled back and forth and then there was just the tinkling of stirrups and buckles, the slapping of leather against flanks, and he would have preferred to be harbored by some din than to be alone with the sounds of himself, a horse, a gun.

  He looked upon the great spread of the mountains. The blue mystery of their trace folded out into obscurity. It gave him no relief to contemplate them, knowing that she was there, somewhere within the trees, the long stretches of scrub, the larger forest.

  Now, as always, she felt as impossible as a dream.

  Even riding with her, through grove or open field, he always felt that she was already far away, moving on some different path. And many days he felt his own horse was made of clay and they were being towed in her wake and all he could do was hold on and do his best not to slow her as she lit out at breakneck speed. She rode like she would not stop till she reached the horizon and there was no telling where her horse ended and where she began.

  Was it love, then, to want to capture her?

  It did not feel right to him. But in truth he had wanted her to be his.

  His horse shifted sideways and back in the field. He turned his shoulder against the mountains and his horse followed the lead of his turned body and they moved towards the station hut.

  HE FOUND BARLOW crawling through the kitchen on his hands and knees. He had his nose right down to the floor like a dog. Jack Brown leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms. He watched Barlow following an ant trail that snaked across the kitchen floor, disappeared behind a cupboard and then reappeared on the wall. He watched the sergeant angle his thin arm around the back of the cupboard and press his face flat against it as he twisted half of his body around to retrieve the perfect skeleton of a bird. He wasn’t talking to Jack Brown when he said, Look at that!

  I am, said Jack Brown.

  Barlow clutched the bird against his chest and drew up his knees like a chastised child. He stared up at Jack Brown, his eyes pulsing in his head.

  Must have flown in and died, said Jack Brown.

  The remains of the bird were strung together by ribbons of flesh that the ants were making short work of. Soon the ants were crawling all over Barlow and he brushed himself frantically with one hand, holding on to the bird with the other.

  A pounding on the station door startled them both.

  Jack Brown was immune to Barlow’s antics now, so an unexpected visitor to the police hut was more bizarre than the scene in front of him.

  Do not make a sound, said Jack Brown, and he left Barlow squeezing himself between the cupboards.

  Jack Brown opened the front door in time to see the wide back of a man heading around the side of the hut.

  Hey! said Jack Brown. What’s your business here?

  The man turned around to face him. His face was typical of most faces Jack Brown had seen in the valley. A face as sunburnt and soiled as old leather.

  So someone’s manning this hole after all. I was about to give up when I saw those horses in the yard and I thought nobody would be stupid enough to leave horses like that. Not even a city copper. Or his black tracker.

  Word travels fast. How can I help you, sir?

  Get me your big-city sergeant.<
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  He’s not here.

  I’ll wait.

  Fair enough, just take a pew and we’ll see if he’s back by tomorrow morning.

  The man sat down and surveyed the view from the hill.

  And who are you anyway? asked the man.

  Jack Brown. But you can call me the black tracker.

  Expected you’d be blacker. Jack Brown, eh? I’m a cattleman. And one hundred head of my cattle has gone missing. The man clicked his fingers. Jack Brown, my cattle just fucking gone!

  Any idea who did it?

  The man dragged his feet in and sat forward. Truth is, it could have been any one of the desperate bastards around here. But one hundred—that’s a real job. Those bastards usually just skim, like cream off the milk. But one hundred. Jack Brown, that’s the milk and the cream.

  One hundred.

  A real fucking vanishing act.

  Where’s your land?

  Up there. He pointed to the far mountains. Near Phantom Ridge. Sidling up the north end.

  Jack Brown knew it. A stretch of land against the northern band of the mountains. He had ridden through it with Jessie and they had skimmed some of the cattle for themselves.

  How many days they been missing?

  Five days or so. I’ve been out looking for signs of them myself. You’d think that one hundred head of cattle, they’d leave some trail. But this is the thing, Jack Brown—I couldn’t even find a trace of their shit. The man scratched his beard with his blunt fingers. Not even a trace of shit.

  The man stood up. I got no time to waste, Jack Brown. Get some of your black-fella magic on to it. When cattle goes missing without a trace, it makes for a very uneasy feeling around here. There are ex-soldiers all over holed up in their huts. They’re all guarding their shitty bit of land and a couple of skinny cows. They’re already spooked. They get word of this, a hundred head just vanished, and they’ll be out with their guns shooting at the fucking dark, wanting a bit of it themselves. They’ll be racing around like fucking lame vigilantes.

  The man walked along the veranda. Jack Brown followed him and watched him mount his horse.

  We’ll need someone to blame for this, Jack Brown, and I hear from good sources that an ex-convict woman is loose and she is famous for her rustling.

  I haven’t heard that, said Jack Brown. And surely you can’t pin a hundred cattle on one woman.

  Rumor is she killed her husband, too. Two birds with one stone, Jack Brown.

  I’ll report it to the sergeant.

  You know, said the man, in the dark a copper and his tracker look the same as any other woman or any other man.

  Is that a threat, sir?

  The man turned his horse. We’re still old-fashioned out here, Jack Brown. We like someone to blame.

  The man took the reins out wide and then he rode away. Jack Brown watched until he was out of sight.

  Back in the hut, Barlow was stretching out the wings of the bird as if he was trying to teach it to fly.

  Do you think it’s a sign, Jack Brown?

  Yep, said Jack Brown. One day we’re all gonna go the way of the bird.

  We’re going to fly?

  Jack Brown could not hold himself back any longer. He picked up Barlow by the neck of his shirt and pressed him against the wall and said, If you don’t get yourself together, you are going to die.

  Barlow’s face was a parade of expressions. First, a gasping, indignant shock and then cheeks colored with anger, warping into an odd, juvenile expression that Jack Brown did not know how to respond to. But then Barlow broke into a sobbing, I don’t want to die. I just want to find her.

  Jack Brown dropped Barlow and he crumpled on the ground.

  Give up that shit you’re on.

  I can’t do it on my own. I need your help.

  It’s not my job.

  It’s your job to help me.

  I’m the tracker, not your nurse.

  Just give me a week. Throw me in the cell. Give me food and water and for fuck’s sake don’t open the door.

  The third night in the cell, Barlow screamed out to Jack Brown, Get her out! She’s under my bed. Her bony fucking finger is tracing down my back.

  Jack Brown was dressed in his underpants but he went into the cell anyway. He lit a candle and waved it under Barlow’s bed. There was nothing there. He swiped his hand beneath it to show Barlow but when he looked up Barlow was gone.

  The back door of the hut was wide open and Jack Brown could see Barlow running through the grass, crying, She’s gonna fucking get me!

  Jack Brown chased him down the slope and tackled him to the ground.

  She’s there, I know she’s fucking in there. She’s got this screwed-up face and I can feel her finger in my back and she was pulling at my hair and—

  Jack Brown punched Barlow and knocked him out. He carried him back inside and laid him down on the bed in the cell.

  That night he sat on the veranda, listening to Barlow’s moaning.

  What good is a sergeant? he thought. And what good is a sergeant who has lost his mind?

  Two days later Barlow was quiet in his cell. Jack Brown gave him food through the bars and Barlow said, I think it’s over.

  We’ll head off at first light tomorrow, then, said Jack Brown.

  Jack Brown wasted no time. He got on his horse and rode to Lay Ping. He undressed her and ran his hands over her back and traced the figures tattooed across her shoulders and down her spine.

  There was a god and goddess, deities that he did not know or recognize. They were bearing down on a waterfall and within the waterfall was everything they had given life to: all mountains, all rocks, all creatures, all sliding down into the dip of her back and her hips.

  And then: SORROW.

  Who is this? he said, touching the god on her shoulder, whose eyes were inflamed with rage.

  This is Izanagi, said Lay Ping as she twisted her long hair around her hand. He is in a fit of jealousy and soon he will tumble into the waterfall and sink down into the world beneath the rocks.

  And what happens there? asked Jack Brown.

  He will be eaten by demons.

  Jack Brown lay on the bed. And then Lay Ping lay on top of him. He closed his eyes. There he saw the world beneath the rocks, the world that her skin did not reveal.

  The station owner of Phantom Ridge did not wait for Barlow, the big-city sergeant, to take any action at all. He had his men post Wanted signs of Jessie around the valley. They collected a wedding photo from the postmaster. There never looked a bride more unhappy. Her dark eyes were narrowed and her disheveled hair only partly hid the bruises taking shape on her forehead and cheek.

  They nailed posters to trees, and others they strung to fences with wire. Even before the men rode away, the posters turned crisp with the unseasonable heat and seemed to fade before their eyes, but they did not fade so much that the reward was no longer visible. Anyone could make out that the capture of this woman with dark eyes and long dark hair was worth one thousand pounds to someone. There was no fine print regarding who had offered the reward or who would ever pay it, but many of those who saw it had a mind for pictures and numbers only. The money itself was enough to impress itself upon them, and in a day or two the news had spread to the single cabins, where all the men, who were otherwise tapping mugs on their tables or skinning some bony thing for their dinner, took the news as they would take a gold nugget between their teeth and they felt it like a tweaked nerve changing their fortunes forever.

  In their minds there was no shadow of a doubt that Jessie was the thief and a murderer, too. Some of them knew Fitz firsthand to be a drunk and, worse, a boastful drunk, bragging about the ways he might kill her. But who were they to judge? If they held to an eye for an eye as their order of justice, most of them would be blind anyway. The thought of weighing up
a man’s sins against the way he should die unnerved them and their sympathy swung to Fitz and was ignited more by the thought of him dying by the hand of a woman. And, further, they considered the size of Fitz and the force of him and what they knew of her and they concluded her powers must be unnatural. His house was burnt down and his body was not found and they preferred to think of witchcraft rather than the idea that there was some accomplice among them. Those who had a head for it deduced that Fitz’s stockman Jack Brown and the rabble-rousers Fitz recruited job to job had been sent up north to deliver cattle, so that left only her and her carefully chosen moment.

  There was talk that cattle were disappearing without a trace and the old man, too, gave fuel to the story. He reported that since Jessie had passed through his house in her escape to the mountains, the old woman, his wife, was no longer sane and had began muttering prayers when she thought that he could not hear her. She had never prayed aloud, not in all the years he had known her, only to herself. And so, in no time at all, the posters and the talk together inspired a terrible scourge and they believed that they were armed with enough reasons for capturing and killing my mother.

  Most of them rode in packs, partly because they did not know the terrain of the mountains, but more out of superstition. Some of them had lived in the shadow of the mountains for more years than they had fingers, but still the mountains sat unnamed and until now the men had no reason to go near them. Only for the fact of the reward money did some ride entirely alone. But they were few, having no assurance that if they fell or lost their footing they would ever be found.

  THE OLD WOMAN HEARD THEM in the night, a cacophony of horses and men. Metal and leather slapping against horses’ bellies, tins and pots and guns, men reckless and howling.

  She rose from the bed she shared with the old man and took pains to be quiet, though now it seemed that nothing would wake him. She shuffled out, collecting her shawl and her boots, and moved into the dark to where his dog was tied to a tree. The dog’s eyes glistened, moving like two flames in his head, and as she came up beside him she cooed so he would not bark but then he did. She used the words the old man used, Shush, you mongrel bastard, and then she muzzled the dog as she had seen the old man do, wrapping rope around his snout. The muzzling sent him bracing against the tree in a soundless fit, his eyes protruding for all he could not bark.