Clearing the Land

By Adrian Brookes.

A movement behind the trees.

The morning was dead still. The mist had burned off, leaving the fiery orb to roast the earth at its leisure, and the bush, knowing the signs, had already slumped into another day’s hot stupor. Nothing could move when even the air couldn’t breathe—except men like Jed Larkins who’d set himself to gouge a living from the stubborn soil. And, of course, anyone minded to stop him.

But no, it must be his nerves, together with the tales going around of the blacks getting uppity and looking to waylay anyone they found alone. Supposedly they still reckoned the country was theirs, even when all they did was pick the low-hanging fruit and never a day’s honest labour. Well, use it or you lose it. Now there were people here who knew how to make the land produce, once they could only get a start, as some had and surely others would if they kept at it.

It was just some delusion of the heat, he told himself, but the feeling only grew of being watched, the focus of a silent outrage. He’d heard it said the blacks could move unseen in the bush even when you were looking straight at them. Well, once the rest of this land was cleared to the river, there’d be nowhere for them to hide.

He backed away to the paddock, where his horse stood. Lifting his musket from its saddle-strap, he took a ball and cartridge and loaded it. As he did so, three of his neighbours arrived, as arranged, to help fell some of the remaining ironbarks.

Robert Benson eyed the musket. The area’s wealthiest settler, he was soon to take up his appointment as magistrate of these newly opened lands. He spoke in a voice of brusque authority. ‘What’s up, Jed?’

‘Aw…’ With their arrival, Jed’s fear turned to embarrassment. ‘Probably nothing. Thought I caught sight of somebody in the bush there.’

The youngest newcomer, a red-faced and excitable-looking youth, blurted, ‘Let’s flush him out!’

The third neighbour, his father, held up a hand of restraint.

‘Where, exactly?’ Benson asked. On Jed’s indication, he urged his horse towards the spot. ‘Here?’

‘Yes. Sorry. I thought…’

‘No, best to be sure.’ Benson came back and dismounted. ‘They paid a visit to Will’s place yesterday.’

Will, the youth’s father, took his cue. ‘That’s right. Yesterday afternoon Jane was home on her own when a bunch of blacks came to the house, wanting flour. Took off with a sackful of it. Pretty high-handed, they were, like they owned the place.’

‘We’re going after them,’ the youth put in.

Will restrained him again. ‘Hold on, Thomas. But, yes, it’s about time, with them demanding and thieving things. Stock going missing, even a horse from the Smiths. Time they were cleared out.’

Benson was nodding. They turned to Jed.

‘All right,’ Jed sighed. ‘You can’t work when you have to be on your guard all the time, as well as worry about the womenfolk back in the house.’

‘Sunday afternoon at my place,’ Benson announced. ‘All the district. And the squatters. Should be a hundred of us. We’ll plan it then. Now we’d better get these ironbarks down so we’re not away too long. Keep an eye out.’

~

They worked until midday, when Jed’s companions departed, ready for a cooked lunch and an afternoon’s attention to their own domains. Jed stayed behind, meaning to grub out the undergrowth from the next area to be cleared. Heartened by the morning’s company, he set to it with a will and worked another hour. He’d turned to dig out one last patch of ferns when it occurred to him there was something suddenly different about the scene before him.

A figure was standing some thirty yards away, a lone black man, tall, lithe and naked, his body painted with streaks of ochre. He was holding a spear, and his proud dark eyes bored unflinchingly into Jed’s.

With a startled gasp, Jed threw down his mattock and ran for his musket. The black man remained stock-still.

‘Go on! Clear off! This is my land.’

The black man remained unmoved. Jed half-raised the musket to his shoulder. The man held his ground. A warning shot, then? Jed dismissed the thought. It would take a minute to reload and seconds for the man to attack. He lowered the musket. ‘Hey! Hey, we talk. What do you want? What do you want?’

The only answer was in the stare.

Jed’s options were stark. The only alternative to shooting the man was to drop the whole situation and return to the house. He’d never shot a man before. How would it affect him? His resolve faltered, but another thought came to his rescue: if they were going to clear the blacks out anyway, there’d be no shame in a tactical retreat.

Well, he wasn’t going to just shrink away. With a snarl of ‘Look here!’ he patted the musket, and to make sure the man had got the idea, he lifted the stock to his shoulder.

With a shout the man jumped, waving his spear. Too shocked to coordinate, all Jed knew was a bang and the thump of the stock on his collar bone. Deafened by the shot, he staggered back a pace and strove to see, but a veil of smoke hid the scene from his sight. In a panic, he clutched the musket barrel ready to swing it.

The smoke dispersed. The man had vanished. Jed looked around. No sign of him. He hadn’t had time to get away without Jed knowing; he must be hiding, but Jed wasn’t going to go and look. The blacks could stay unseen if they wanted; they were right at home in this country. All the more reason to clear them out.

Retreating to the paddock, he fumbled to reload. By the time it occurred to his tumbling brain to wonder why the man hadn’t attacked, he heard a rider approaching. Benson.

‘I heard a shot.’

Jed explained.

‘You’re sure this time?’

‘He’s still in there somewhere.’

Benson scanned the bush. ‘We’d better look.’

He dismounted and they walked forward, weapons at the ready. After half a dozen paces they saw him—motionless once more, now sprawled on his back, spear lying alongside him. There was a hole in the dead centre of his breast. Jed glanced at it, but it was the eyes that seized his attention, now forever fixed with their glare of dark indictment.

Jed looked on aghast. ‘I didn’t mean to…’ But who was he talking to? His stomach churned with the thought of Benson, magistrate in waiting, feeling obliged to pass on the information to the authorities. In some places, white men had been hanged for killing blacks.

For some moments Benson stayed silent. Then he looked up sharply at Jed, who braced himself; but the words that came were quiet, measured, even a little unsteady, though from anger or some other emotion Jed wasn’t sure. ‘We dig a hole right here. Leave this area overgrown. Don’t clear it.’ A welter of emotions wrestled behind his eyes. ‘We say nothing. Not to anyone. Understand? Nothing!’

Jed began to stammer an answer, but Benson turned on him. ‘Get this done, then put it out of your mind.’

Put it out of his mind. Could he? Reeling back the scene, Jed saw himself and the black man parlaying, coming to understand each other.

But they were going to clear the blacks out anyway. It had all been decided. He didn’t have a say.

~

Years later, someone new to the area asked Jed, ‘Why didn’t you clear that corner of the paddock?’

Jed rubbed his chin. ‘Bit of shade for the stock.’

It was the answer he’d told himself a thousand times, the only one he could allow to be true. For deep in the tunnels of his mind lurked the unsayable. Mostly he could clamp it in, but whenever a careless thought or necessity of work turned him to that patch of bloodied land, he could feel its fury rise at his approach and rattle him like thunder.

He tried to be the regular bloke with his mates, but those fearless eyes were always before him. For a while he could meet and match them, but the more they showed him their story the more he’d blink and the haunting would come spilling out of him.

They grimaced behind his back. ‘Old Jed’s gone funny.’ One by one they turned away.

He knew why. They all carried the guilt inside them. Whatever it was that set it off, they didn’t want to catch it from him.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Adrian Brookes grew up in the English West Midlands but has lived most of his life in Australia. A former journalist and English teacher, he writes short fiction and songs.