The Burial by Courtney Collins Page A

then into the forest, alongside the river. He moved through the forest till he heard the reverberating sound of kangaroos, their bounding noise travelling from every direction. Jack Brown pulled up his horse and halted on the track. He had heard stories of mobs attacking lone riders, although he had never seen it himself.
    He lay down along the neck of his horse and a huge grey buck appeared on the track, then a dozen or so smaller roos bounded past. They travelled in single file, following the grey buck down to the river, clearing the fence line one at a time. Jack Brown had seen them travelling in mobs before, mainly across open fields, but there was something impressive about the agile way they negotiated the thick bushland without losing their order. He watched them until they reached the river and it was then that Jack Brown saw my mother, sitting on a rock ledge. She was so still he might not have seen her camouflaged against the rock if she had not sensed him near and turned around.
    Who’s there? she yelled.
    Jack Brown was surprised to see any human form after so long and especially a woman. He dismounted and walked his horse up to the fence line. She was already climbing up the rise to meet him.
    I’m Jack Brown , he said. I am looking for Fitzgerald Henry .
    You’re Jack Brown? she asked.
    Yes , he said. I’ve an offer of employment from Mr Henry. He tapped his top pocket.
    I’m Jessie , she said, surveying him. To him she looked steely and confused. Keep heading down the track then , she said, and follow it till you get there.
    She turned away suddenly and headed back towards the river.
    Jack Brown mounted his horse. Thank you , he called after her. But she was already gone.
    He steered his horse to the track and rode slowly, wondering who she was, if she was some forest dweller, some itinerant, and if he could expect to see her again.
    He had set off from Sydney, where he had been convalescing for two months in a boarding house for ex-servicemen. The mood there was depressive and he was glad to leave it. It was filled with soldiers who had no family or wives or girlfriends waiting for them and who could not work immediately due to whatever injury they suffered. There were some single rooms, which were coveted, but otherwise they slept in bunk beds in a large dorm.
    On Friday and Saturday afternoons most of the men would try to forget themselves by donning their army uniforms and crawling the pubs for good-looking girls before closing time in the early evening. For Jack Brown this usually meant smoking cigarettes outside before they moved along to one speakeasy or another, where anyone could enter. If they arrived somewhere to find it shut down they would set up in a park or close to the harbour, which Jack Brown preferred.
    Some of the men began to partner off with the girls. One of the girls took Jack Brown on as her special project and one Saturday night she brought along a friend for him. He thought the friend was attractive enough. She had big green eyes and yellow hair that was cut into a fashionable bob. She called herself a modern woman and she invited him back to her studio flat in Kings Cross and they went out for a picnic and once to a dance and once to the zoo.
    For her, a modern woman’s best accessory was the hipflask she carried in her handbag. On the ferry ride to the zoo she swilled from the hipflask too many times. Jack Brown , she slurred, I don’t care if you’re black, white or brindle , and she stuck her tongue in his ear. He felt so repulsed by her he thought he might prefer to swim across the shark-infested harbour than spend the rest of the day with her.
    Aside from that, the city women kept up such a pace Jack Brown did not think there was any use in catching one or keeping one when he knew the city was no place for him anyway.
    And so he replied by letter to Fitz’s advertisement for an Aboriginal stockman, which he had found pinned up in the foyer of