| Chapter Nine - Cows, Horses and
Coppers The summer it was hot and dry, and we was all busy growing gardens and patching fences and doing all the things that were needed to produce enough to be living on. One of our cows had a fine little heifer calf which pleased us, that would be more butter and milk in the future. She was a sweet little thing with a soft cream colour with big brown eyes and it was one of me pleasures to be feeding her milk from the bucket after I had done milking her dam. Her little whiskery face all covered in milky foam would be pushing up against me hand. Her nose so soft to touch, her tongue rough on your skin as she tried to nurse from your fingers. I wasted some time playing with her and getting her used to being handled, though the more tame she was the easier it would be for us when it came time to be milking her. I called her Honey, her Ma being Clover it kind of fit to my way of thinking anyway. Meg she laughed at how long it took me to be naming her, rolling her eyes and asking just how long it would be taking me to name me children. When I had them, not if in that thought any more. Seemed that Meg had made her mind up about things anyway. As Joe put it once or twice Liam goose was cooked, now that Meg was convinced. Joe well him and Ned and the lads they were busy with their trading. From what Joe was telling me things was going well for them. He had some fine new clothes as did Ned, part of the job Joe was telling me…that being said there were also new dresses at the Byrne household. Liam he was mighty busy as well but he found the time to be riding to the Woolshed near every second week, seemed that him and Ned and Joe they did some buying and selling between them. A mutually profitable arrangement from my understanding. Liam he began talking about buying some land some place near. Asking me what I thought and I did a lot of thinking and hoping but was too afraid to be saying what I really thought. In case he might not be thinking exactly what I was. Seemed if I said too much then he might be thinking I was anxious to be settling him down. When I mentioned that to Joe, while asking him what he thought that Liam thought of me well Joe he laughed and said that Liam was mad in love as well. It made me feel somewhat better but I was still all a flutter most of the time with nerves and wanting and waiting. This summer I was not seeing Joe as often, he was all caught up in his acquiring and selling and then there was the Whitty raid. It had been the middle of winter when it had happened. A fair lot of horses, eleven all told liberated from James Whitty and his neighbours. Whitty he was a nasty man who was no friend of folks like us and Ned well he fair hated him. The horses well some of them had been sold and others were hidden away but the coppers they was looking for them that was responsible. It was a nervous time. The authorities they had their suspects, some of them the right ones and others wrong and they seemed determined to find and punish someone for the job, seemed they did not really care who it was. I knew that Ned and Joe was in the thick of it, Joe having told me a fair bit of what had gone on so I spent a lot of me time in Beechworth listening out for any rumours that they should be worrying about. And amongst all that worry the trouble that seemed to follow the Kelly’s well it seemed to have settled on Kate she was having some worries with some fella, a copper by the name of Fitzpatrick, I was never liking that man. He was too friendly for a copper, wanting to be dancing with the likes of us and trying to buy Kate drinks. Ned liked him, though he had no reason too. Fitzpatrick turned on him not so long after the Whitty raid, arresting him for drunkenness in Benalla. Now in all the time I had been knowing Ned I had never seen him have more than a glass or two and have never seen him drunk. We figured that his grog had been messed with. It was a right circus that day. Ned he made quite a name for himself, knocking that fool Fitzpatrick senseless and beating off four others until a Justice of the Peace he persuaded Ned to give his self up. I don’t know why Ned did not just see that Fitzpatrick was a bad sort right then, but for some reason he still liked the fella even when Tom and Jack Lloyd ended up locked away for some harmless prank, Ned having convinced them to be turning themselves in. Ned he was furious about that, determined to be seeing things right, to have a word with Fitzpatrick, but there was not time. The coppers issued warrants to arrest who they thought had stolen the Whitty horses. Calm as could be Ned he sold up some of his share then him and Joe they drove the others off over the Murray. Joe he came in to be saying goodbye to his Mam and he called on us, asking if Meg and I had money enough to be seeing us taking care of our Ma. Generous he was when he the coin in his pocket, making sure that he had taken care of those that were dear to him before he left. I know his Mam welcomed the help, but I know that she would have preferred him working with her there on the farm. A resentment that she barely tried to hide at times, and while I felt pity for her I also could understand why Joe just could not be there. They was gone for some months, the only news from them the odd letter that Joe posted off here or there. Never saying very much about anything, I suppose in case it fell into the wrong hands but there was enough for me to know that he was alright. Sounded like him and Ned they was enjoying their wandering, camping out under the stars and seeing different places. He was still writing his poems and often there would be one or two tucked in between the news. He could say only a few words and I would see what he had seen. He was good with words, writing little songs here and there and funny bits that he would share with all the lads, but it was the softer bits, the quieter thoughts that I treasured. Those pieces that were the Joe that I knew, the one that had been me mate all these years. I tucked them all in me bible, a safe place for them. Joe’s poems and Liam’s letters, a different sort of poetry in his words, nothing ever said that was not meant. Liam he saw them once or twice in his travels and bought word back to us but it was a very quiet time, odd to not have Joe wandering in when he was passing. I missed him, as I always did when he was gone but it was not the same lonely ache as it had been before. Liam and me we could talk just as good as Joe and I did and while I did not ever see Liam as much as I would have wanted it was as often as he could get there so for that I was thankful. Meg and her Danny they got engaged mid March and she immediately started planning the wedding, no messing about waiting though she did look as if she was going to slap me when I asked just how soon the wedding was to be. A sensible question I felt as most lasses got married before their bellies got too big. Apparently it was not like that though and she was caught up in dresses and planning, telling me that Dan he had seen a nice place down Benalla way. I think she caught the quick fear I felt on me face, for she talked quickly about how it had a room that our mother could be staying in. Though truthfully I think even then we doubted that our Ma would be lasting another winter. She was wasted to almost nothing and even the doctor had shook his head and told us it was just a matter of time. A shame he had said, she had been a fine woman, sad how she had just given up when our Da had gone. Meg and I we did not speak about me or where I would go. Both of us silently hoping that Liam would be asking me what I was hoping to hear, at least I think that Meg was, she never said any thing out loud but sometimes it felt like she was about to shove Liam down on one knee and stand over him with a bit of firewood. It was best for us to be leaving the house when she was being like that. The summer moved on, slowly into autumn and the police they issued a warrant for Ned There was no men home at the Kelly farm and Kate was telling me that the coppers was always busting into the house. Scaring the little ones, tipping the food all over the floor. I hoped that Ned and Joe would not hear of it, as did Kate, we had whispered conversations when we met, worrying that they would get word of it and ride home. For they would be riding into trouble. But hope was not enough, I suppose I always knew it would not be, for it was not like them to be leaving those that they loved to be hounded. In autumn they came home. Back to the Kelly homestead. Joe well his arrival near scared the life out of me. Turning up as I was milking the cows, sitting daydreaming about the little house that Liam and I would build and the beautiful children we would have. Sooner rather than later if we was not being more careful I was thinking. Flushing just slightly at where those thoughts went, so caught up in me imaginings and rememberings that I did not be hearing Joe whistle or be noticing him until he put his hand on me shoulder. The milk well it went everywhere, me shriek startled old Clover and she gave a hell of a kick and the bucket it went flying covering the both of us as it did. I truly hate the smell of fresh milk and all I could do was stand and stare at Joe as the stinking stuff dripped off me. “Yer reckon we should go swimming like we used to Mai” his first words followed by a wicked little grin “though Liam might be saying something about that these days.” He grabbed up me hand and squinted. “No ring yet eh?” “Stop yer babbling Joe” I was red faced and embarrassed at his teasing and happy to see him all at once. “What are you doing back here, there is trouble just waiting to be happening.” His face was suddenly different, older and there was something is his eyes that made me scared, for him, for all of them, he nodded “I know Mai, I know…” he seemed to be about to say something else but stopped, tilting his head to smile at me instead “you should see me new horse Mai, a beautiful grey her name is Music….” |