Letty's Christmas Read online

  ‘Why are you called Cabbagetree Bill?’ he wanted to know. ‘You don’t look like a cabbage.’

  ‘Me hat,’ said Bill.

  ‘But it’s not a cabbage,’ said Harry. ‘You can’t eat it.’

  Cabbagetree Bill chewed on his pipe. Letty could almost imagine him chomping slowly on his hat brim, just like his team chewed their cud.

  ‘Cabbage palm,’ Bill said. ‘If the drought keeps up I might try it yet.’

  Harry laughed. Bill looked as if he didn’t know what a joke was.

  ‘How do you steer the bulls without reins?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Bullocks,’ said Bill. ‘They’re smarter than you, most like. They move where I tell ’em.’

  The road curved slightly left, and Bill took his pipe out of his mouth to call the team. ‘C’mere, Wellington. C’mere, Boney.’

  The bullocks’ ears swivelled at the sound of Bill’s voice. Harry watched with interest.

  ‘What are their names?’ he asked.

  ‘Gawd, you talk, don’t ye?’ said Cabbagetree Bill. Actually, Letty thought, Harry didn’t usually talk that much. Especially not to her. Often he slipped away into his own little world, which Letty was not part of. But something about the bullocks had caught his attention.

  Cabbagetree Bill pointed his pipe at the first pair. ‘That’s Wellington and Bonaparte, cos they’re the leaders.’

  Letty had heard of General Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte. They led armies against each other, in the war before she was born. So Cabbagetree Bill had put them together. He was a strange man, Letty thought.

  ‘What about these ones?’ Harry pointed to the deep-red backs of the closest bullocks.

  ‘They’re the polers – Star and Cherry.’

  ‘And the other ones?’

  Letty nudged Harry with her elbow to stop pestering the man. Harry just elbowed her back.

  ‘Hume and Hovell,’ said Bill, naming the famous explorers, ‘cos they like to wander in the bush. The pin-bullocks are Gin and Brandy.’

  Harry watched their big haunches heave in slow rhythm. He asked another question.

  ‘Why do you put them in the same places every day?’

  ‘Shh!’ said Letty, who thought Harry would annoy the bullocky. She couldn’t tell the difference between the animals, let alone remember if they had an order.

  ‘Ah,’ said the bullocky. He shoved his hat up his forehead so he could look at Harry. ‘Now, that’s a question.

  ‘See Brandy and Gin,’ Bill continued, ‘they’re the strong spirits. The ones with kick in ’em. So I put ’em as pins – that’s second to the load – where they’ve gotta take the most weight …’ And he went on explaining to Harry how the team worked, until eventually he got off the dray to take it around a tight corner.

  Once he’d called the whole team around the bend, Bill came back to Harry. ‘They’re a good tough team,’ he said. ‘Good tough life too, boy. Ye could do worse when ye grow up. I’ll take ye, when yer bigger; if yer want.’

  Harry’s little face lit up. He pretended to crack a whip through the air: ‘Wha-cha!’

  Letty grabbed him around the waist to make sure he didn’t fall.

  She wondered whether anyone would ‘take’ her when she got to Sydney. She felt as if life was carrying her along like the dray, trundling and churning in its own direction, and she was powerless to control it.

  For five days the bullocks and the Greys plodded through an endless arch of trees, in and out of sun and shade, hills and dips. On the sixth day they reached Hartley. Hartley was the village where Letty and Mary had got off the Sydney coach, when Victoria was newborn. She had first met Clem and Harry here, in winter.

  In early summer, Hartley was like a cattleyard. The air smelled of cow manure, and it was thick with flies. Bullocks lined the street, swishing their tails. Teamsters slouched against their animals.

  ‘Whoa!’ Bill called his team to a halt.

  ‘Time for a break,’ Clem told his family. ‘Cabbagetree’s going to let his animals rest up for tomorrow, while we arrange for a double to join him.’

  ‘What’s a double?’ Harry asked, as his father went off to talk to the other bullockies. Letty didn’t know.

  They found out next morning. Harry stared at the sight with his mouth open: a second team of bullocks were being chained in front of Bill’s. A new bullocky leaned his shoulder into one of the near-side animals, shoving it under the wooden yoke.

  Clem explained the second team was for extra pulling power.

  ‘We-er going over the mountains?’ Abner asked.

  ‘Yep. The Blue Mountains,’ Clem said, and hitched his thumbs through his belt.

  Mary pulled the ties of her bonnet tighter. ‘So this is the bad bit,’ she murmured. Letty wondered what that might mean.

  ‘Ready?’ Clem called to Cabbagetree Bill.

  Cabbagetree Bill nodded. At least, Letty thought he did. It was hard to see much of his face under his hat. ‘Oi, you.’ He crooked a finger at Letty.

  Letty looked around to see if he meant someone else.

  ‘Letty. C’mere.’ Letty had the feeling he was calling her like one of his animals. She felt odd, but she obeyed. ‘Keep the little fella clear,’ Bill said, from under the shadow of his brim. ‘Steepest pinch in New South Wales, this one.’

  Letty sighed. Riding on the dray had made Harry happy the last few days. Keeping him apart from the bullocks wouldn’t be easy.

  For the hundredth time, Letty wished she wasn’t going to Sydney.

  4

  Up the Long Pinch

  ‘GEE off!’ the new bullocky shouted. He cracked his whip across the ears of the front bullocks. The animals leaned their bulky shoulders into their harness. The dray creaked. The wheels began to turn, inch by inch.

  Just out of Hartley, the mountains were a wall of green in front of Letty and her companions. The dirt road veered straight up. This is the bottom of what Cabbagetree Bill calls the ‘pinch’, Letty thought. Sitting backwards in the Greys’ cart as it bounced ahead, all she could see of Bill was his white hat, moving along his team.

  Letty, Abner and Harry watched the bullocks strain against their yokes. The road wasn’t only steep. ‘It zig-zags like a dog’s hind leg,’ Clem said, ‘all the way to Victoria Pass.’ The higher they got, the more the road fell away at the edge. Letty held her breath each time she saw the dray round a corner, with the wool tilting out over the drop below.

  Even their cart came uncomfortably close to the edge. For once, Harry held onto Letty as he peered over.

  ‘What’s that?’ Harry pointed down the slope. A bad smell rose from somewhere in the thick bush. Letty could hear flies buzzing, too.

  ‘A dead kangaroo, most like,’ said Abner.

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Harry, sticking out his lower lip. Letty wasn’t interested in dead things. She wanted a drink. They weren’t allowed water while the cart was moving, because it was too precious to spill.

  The boulders on the road got so big that Clem stopped under a shady cliff-face.

  ‘Better you get out than be tipped out,’ he said to them all. ‘Stay clear of the wheels.’

  When everyone was out of the cart, Clem led the horse. In her long skirts, Mary often tripped over the rocks. Abner offered to carry Victoria for her. Letty took a firm hold of Harry’s hand. With her other hand, she swatted at the flies that stuck to Victoria’s little damp lips.

  ‘Nang, nang, nang.’ Victoria grizzled for a bit, then slept on Abner’s shoulder.

  The baby had it easy, compared to everyone else. After hours of walking, they rounded a hairpin bend, into full sunshine. Letty felt the sun burning through her bonnet. It scorched the backs of her hands and bounced into her face off the dirt road. Cicadas started up around them, dinning into Letty’s ears. Harry hung on her arm and dragged his feet. It felt impossible to move through the wall of heat and noise.

  To keep herself moving, Letty fixed her eyes on a pile of white bones on the r
oadside, not far ahead. She made herself walk that far. The bones were thick and smooth as the branches of a gum tree. Harry wanted to stop and look.

  ‘Don’t touch,’ said Letty. ‘They’re dirty.’ She pulled him on.

  A short distance on there was another pile. By the time they drew level with this heap of bones, Letty knew what they were. Not a kangaroo at all. She looked at Abner to see if he had noticed. He was also looking at the wide skull with holes for eyes, and the unmistakeable curve of horns.

  ‘A bullock,’ whispered Harry.

  The further they went, the more carcasses littered the roadside. Letty shuddered to think that so many animals hadn’t made the journey. Fearful thoughts began to buzz around her head like flies. What if their bullocks didn’t make it either? What if she couldn’t make it? Letty swatted the thoughts away.

  ‘Po-er things,’ said Abner.

  Harry nodded and held Letty’s hand tighter.

  ‘How far is it to Christmas?’ he asked.

  Abner smiled. ‘Christmas isn’t a place exactly.’

  ‘It’s a day,’ Letty corrected. ‘The twenty-fifth of December.’

  ‘Less than a couple of weeks away,’ Abner said encouragingly.

  Although it felt much, much further. Christmas seemed half a world away to Letty – away from the bush, the heat, the insects and this never-ending mountain. Christmas belonged with her family in England, in winter. ‘This isn’t much like Christmas,’ she murmured to Abner.

  ‘Oh?’ said Abner. ‘Thinking the opposite, I was.’

  Abner’s neck was sunburnt and his hair was damp with sweat. He didn’t look any cooler than Letty felt. She didn’t know what he meant. Maybe walking through the bush made you go a bit strange, like Cabbagetree Bill.

  ‘We-er a bit like the holy family, in the Christmas story,’ Abner explained. ‘We’ve got a horse and cart instead of a donkey, but we-er travelling a long road, not of ou-er choosing. We’ve even got a mother called Mary and a babe.’ He patted Victoria on the bottom.

  Letty had forgotten that part of Christmas.

  Abner began to sing a carol: ‘He came down to earth from heaven –’

  ‘Don’t care,’ Harry interrupted. ‘I want a rest.’

  Letty agreed. It was well past lunchtime. Not far ahead the road seemed to broaden and straighten out. She looked behind them. The long line of animals snaked down the hill.

  As she watched, one of the lead bullocks staggered and fell to its knees. Its pair halted. The animals behind nearly walked into it, until the whole team was bunched up and stopped. The dray’s right wheel was balanced on a large rock. The pile of wool bales tilted at a precarious angle, out over the drop.

  The new bullocky walked up to the fallen animal, turned his whip handle around and hit the bullock across the nose. The bullock swung its head away, with a deep, mournful low. It hurt Letty to see such a powerful animal fallen down and helpless. Harry stiffened. Abner winced. Cabbagetree Bill didn’t seem to like it either. He muttered and stomped along the train of animals.

  The bullocky hit his beast again.

  Suddenly Harry let go Letty’s hand and ran down the road. He planted himself between the animal and the man, and yelled, ‘Don’t do that!’

  Harry was standing so close that the bullock’s horns towered over him. Letty was afraid it would gore him.

  ‘Harry!’ Mary screamed.

  The fallen bullock’s pair shied away, startled. It backed into the animal behind it. The rest of the team shuffled and twisted in their yokes, trying to move out of the way. A jerky ripple went down the line. Letty saw the pole pair step sideways. The dray tilted further. The wool bales were about to topple over the edge.

  Letty dashed forward and lunged for Harry. The front bullock lumbered to its feet, as she pulled the little boy away. The dray’s wheel slipped on the rock. The dray came down on the road with a tremendous ‘crack’. The noise echoed off the mountains, and the pile of wool bales shuddered – but stayed upright.

  Letty’s heart thumped. Even though Harry had come to no harm and the dray’s load was safe, it had been a very close thing. Mary scooped up her son and held him tight. Letty saw that her fingers had left a mark on the soft skin of Harry’s arm, so she gave it a gentle rub. Abner gave a long sigh of relief.

  But the bullockies didn’t. Ignoring Mary and the children, they strode down to the dray. There they lay on their backs in the dust, looking underneath. The new bullocky began to swear black and blue. Cabbagetree Bill shoved his hat down on his head and trudged up to Clem.

  ‘Axle’s broken,’ he said.

  Clem frowned and crossed his arms.

  ‘What’s a axle?’ Harry whispered to Abner.

  ‘The part that turns the wheels,’ Abner answered.

  Bill unchained his team from the vehicle. So the dray wasn’t going anywhere. Were they stuck here, in the middle of nowhere? Letty wondered. That would be even worse than having to walk.

  ‘That’s the top of the pass ahead there,’ said the second bullocky. ‘There’s water for camping. We can move the bloody load with the cart, then tomorrow cut some timber to fix the damn dray.’

  Letty licked her lips at the mention of water. Her feet hurt. A camp sounded good.

  But Clem didn’t seem to appreciate his precious wool being called a ‘bloody load’. Cabbagetree Bill wasn’t going along with the other man either.

  ‘That’s drummy ground,’ Bill grumbled. ‘The bullocks will bolt.’

  In the end there wasn’t really a choice. As everyone stood on the road, arguing over what to do, they heard the jingling of a harness. Clem’s horse began to toss its head and pull on the reins.

  ‘Someone comin’,’ said Cabbagetree Bill.

  It turned out to be the Sydney coach, on its way to Bathurst. The coach driver threatened that he’d report Bill and Clem to the troopers for obstruction of the mail if they didn’t clear the road.

  Eventually, they did. Letty, Harry and Mary walked the last mile, with Victoria awake and crying. Abner and the men untied the bales. They moved them to the cart two at a time, then carried them on past Mary and the children, to the head of the pass.

  In the late afternoon, Letty finally came out of the tangled forest and reached the open campsite. What a site it was, Letty couldn’t help thinking. She had never felt so high in her life. A mountain range spread at her feet. She stood on top of a long ridge, edged with big orange stacks of rock. Valleys were scooped out on either side of her. Shadows of wispy clouds moved across the forest below like swirling inkblots.

  Letty took a long drink from the tin cup Mary handed her. She felt the water soak inside her, and the Blue Mountains bathe her heart with their beauty.

  ‘Near as good as being at sea, this is,’ said Abner.

  ‘Better,’ Letty said. She was happy the dray would take a day to fix. She didn’t want to move.

  5

  Victoria Pass

  AROUND the campfire that night, Letty could hear the bullock bells donging. The bullocks lowed to each other through the darkness.

  ‘Bloody animals are more conversational than you, Bill,’ said the new bullocky.

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ said Mary. ‘I’m sure we’re all tired.’

  ‘The worst of it is over,’ said Clem. ‘From here we go along the ridge, then downhill to Sydney.’

  ‘If we get that far,’ said Bill. He stamped one heel in the dirt. ‘Drummy ground.’

  ‘What’s drummy ground?’ Harry lifted his head from his father’s lap.

  ‘Hollowed out underneath like,’ said Bill. ‘An Aborigine bloke told me it’s haunted. Got ghosts. Bullocks don’t like it neither.’

  ‘Will the ghosts stop us getting to Christmas?’ said Harry, in a shaky voice.

  ‘Course not,’ said Clem.

  ‘I know a story to keep ghosts away,’ said Abner. ‘A holy one, from the Bible.’

  ‘I don’t hold with religion,’ said the second bullocky. ‘It’
s all mumble jumble.’

  Harry glared at him. ‘Does the story have animals in it?’ he asked Abner.

  ‘Yes,’ said Abner.

  ‘Then tell me.’ Harry snuggled into his father.

  Abner began, in his funny Welsh voice that rocked gently like a ship at anchor. ‘A long, long time ago …’ Abner told the story about Mary and Joseph: how they travelled to Bethlehem, and how when Jesus was born he had to sleep with the animals, because there was no room anywhere else.

  Abner’s voice carried Letty across time and space, not to Bethlehem, but back to England. She remembered going to church on cold Christmas nights, with Lavinia, Papa and all her family. She remembered hearing that same story. Letty missed her family so much. She wished she had never left them.

  ‘Letty?’ Mary said softly. Abner had stopped speaking. Harry had fallen asleep.

  ‘Yes?’ Letty’s voice felt gravelly with tiredness and homesickness.

  ‘Tomorrow can you please –’

  Letty didn’t feel like thinking about tomorrow.

  ‘– can you please keep Harry out of the way? I know he’s not an easy child. It wasn’t your fault he made things worse today with the bullocks and the cart. I just don’t want Harry around while they fell a tree. I know I can trust you. Do your best.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Looking after Harry wasn’t something Letty wanted to do. But someone had to.

  Not long after sunrise, cicadas woke Letty. With the insects singing so early, she knew it was going to be very hot. The bullocks lay in the grass like boulders, not moving except for the slow chew of their jaws. At least nobody had to walk today, Letty thought.

  After breakfast Abner found a shady spot to sit and splice rope. The men would need the rope later, for binding a tree trunk to the broken axle. Letty and Harry went to keep him company. Abner let Harry hold the end of the rope. But Harry soon got bored. He wandered off into a glade of long grass.