The Roving Party by Rohan Wilson Page A

some of his own.

A T NOON THE FOLLOWING DAY THE bush first thinned over a few yards then evaporated entirely as the party approached the open grounds of Kingston. A change of temper washed over them and talk rounded to rewards and their spending, rum and its swilling, women and their laying. They retraced the curve of the field long ago burned from the forest by the Plindermairhemener. They passed the sheep bones and skerricks of yellowed wool that littered the ground, evidence of the slaughter committed upon Batman’s flocks some years back by those same folk. They led the native girl along and her dull eyes saw but did not see. Her feet kicked over the bones that rattled like ruined pottery.
    As they neared the farmhouse Batman’s three girls came bolting over the paddocks and topping fences to embrace their father. The eldest stood back when she caught smell of his clothes but the little ones seemed untroubled and latched on around his legs.
    Is she sick, Father? said the eldest. She was pointing at the black girl who’d dropped to her knees.
    She aint no concern ayours. He hauled the girls off his legs and steered them towards their sister. For a moment the three girls lingered, their dresses catching on the breeze. Then the youngest spotted the child Jimmy Gumm had on his hip.
    A baby. He has a baby, she said.
    Get inside. Get! Batman yelled and the girls took off.
    On Batman’s word, Gould led the native girl to the outbuildings. The key groaned in the padlock as Gould cranked it around and the chains fell free from the looped handles of the store shed. He freed the crossbrace and yanked on the door and its toe scarred the earth as it moved. The faded afternoon sun issued through the separations in the woodwork and caught in the cobwebs. That was all the light the girl would have. Gould pushed her into the stink of wool and sheep shit, and shouldered the door shut. Not a sound did she utter.

    When Eliza Batman appeared on the verandah she had in her hands a pisspot turned from wattle wood that contained their night’s purgations and her girls were leading her along by the skirts, pointing at the party men as they neared the farmhouse—the boy in his clothes stiffened with dog’s blood and the smiling black men and among them Jimmy Gummholding the hand of a native child. Batman kept his distance until she’d slung the contents of the pisspot on the grass. She was a slight Irish woman, pockmarked but handsome still, and she met those men with a glare which made plain her displeasure.
    And what by Jaysus is this?
    A boy, mam.
    She swung about on John Batman. A boy. So where’s his mother?
    Locked up.
    Dont let’s be lyin to each other, Johnny.
    I aint lyin. She’s locked there in that store shed.
    In there?
    That’s what I said, woman.
    She cut through those squalid bushmen with her three girls behind her and banged on the door of the store shed. She called out but there was no sound from inside. Open it, she said.
    William Gould produced a ring of iron keys and from that selected one, shaking it free of the rest. He tugged the heavy door open in fits and starts. Eliza bent her head inside.
    Fearsome little colleen that, said Gumm, but he was met by the stone cold eyes of John Batman and the grin he wore vanished. The native girl stumbled drunkenly into the noon glare. Immediately the child by Gumm’s side began to keen for its mother.
    Take care, said Gould. She has a set of claws on her.
    But Eliza showed no caution as she stood taking summary of the girl from head to toe. The remnants of her ritual painting remained on her yet and the smeared ochre and white clay told of her providence among the people of the hills. The animal pelt she wore across one shoulder was crawling with fleas and stank of the smoke and grease of bushlife. She swayed under the baffling sun and covered her eyes with her roped hands.
    Eliza looked around at the men. She’s nothin but a child.
    Batman grimaced. I dont care what she