Published: 29 Apr 2024

On his return to camp Axel needed to pass by the hut of an emancipist farmer. The man had been introduced to him by the name of Henry Wilson and known to be a heavy drinker with a violent disposition, which he mostly took out on the natives, especially when they crossed through his small patch of corn while they were hunting, or travelling to the creek for fishing.

During a brief encounter Wilson proudly announced his wounding of a native youth on the leg. They don’t like the taste of led, Wilson had bragged, with Axel giving warning about his tirade against the natives, as they could be revengeful and he somewhat isolated if attacked. Wilson quickly announced he would shoot the buggers if the came within a hundred yards of his property and if Axel had any nouce he would do likewise.

As Axel crossed over the Stringers Creek close by Wilson’s hut, he could see its stringy-bark roofing of the hut through a gap in a line of trees. On its roof, acting as weights against the wind, are a number of large pumpkins and river stones. Knowing Wilson’s moods he though of making a wide arc of the property, so not to bring on the man’s displeasure but he senses something to be amiss and instead he cautiously approaches.

Coming from behind the hut and the garden plot, Axel could not see Wilson working in his garden, or any sign of activity and by now Wilson’s pet native dog should have challenged any stranger’s arrival before departing into the thick scrub with its tail between its legs. At that time of the late afternoon there should be at very least smoke from his mud brick chimney, also his meat drying rack beside the hut appeared to have been knocked down and the usual supply of drying kangaroo meat missing.

Axel approaches and discovers Wilson lying beside the hut’s doorway. At first Axel believed the man had a fall but he soon noticed a broken native hunting spear protruding from the man’s chest, beside his body is the broken shaft and his powder flask but his gun is missing. It seemed Wilson had had enough life left in him to break the shaft before deaths dark shadow moved across him.

“Bugger,” Axel loudly exclaims as he hurries to the man’s side but Wilson is cold beyond rigor mortis. Blowflies had already laid their maggots around the spear wound and lifted as a single cloud on approach.

“I did warn ya’,” Axel loudly expresses as he attempts to remove the broken lance. It is well stuck in Wilson’s chest. He knows the design of the spear as belonging to the black man who visited his camp some time previously demanding grog.

‘No,’ he thinks as he reaches for the broken shaft.

‘It is best to leave it.’

‘What should I do?’

‘I could bury him and say nothing.’

‘If I do and someone comes looking for him, they may blame me.’

There is a military post on the main road less than an hour’s walk from Wilson’s hut that Axel passed on his return. It was unmanned at the time of his passing but usually had two troopers protecting the approach to Rose Hill and further on towards Parramatta. Axel decides to report the incident at the post but as the daylight is fast fading, he elects to make use of Wilson’s hut for the night then report the matter at first light. Out of respect for the man, he moves the body aside, covering it with a portion of canvas that Wilson used to keep the firewood out of the weather.

The hut is as basic as one could design and what furnishing Wilson had is make-do, a box for sitting. A bench for working and what could be considered a table for meals. In a second smaller room a bed of old blankets spread out on a rough timber frame.

Back in the kitchen Axel discovers Wilson had been making a meal when he was disturbed, although what is in the pot had congealed and as cold as Wilson’s body. The nose test deems it palatable. Axel finds a candle then reset the fire, soon the meal is heated to taste but lacking in flavour and it is as well his constitution has become strong from years of rough living and like most bushmen when it came to bad food, he had a cast iron stomach. With his meal finished Axel decides to sleep the night in the hut then with first light go to the military post to report the man’s demise.

It was an uneasy night for Axel with a mixture of fear and apprehension. Would the blacks return and if so, would they believe he is associated with Wilson and why hadn’t they torched the corn patch and hut as was their usual reprisal. Even so by his reckoning the attack was possibly the work of a single native. The most of Axel’s apprehension is from being confined in the hut, as it had been so long since he slept inside, he imagined the rough log walls were closing in on him, as they blocked the many night sounds that made him feel safe.

It is late morning along the Parramatta road. A single cart has stopped at the military post and the driver in conversation with one of the troopers. A second trooper is gazing back along the road towards Axel’s approach. As the cart moves on both troopers become interested in Axel, who is now close and obviously desiring attention.

Axel is challenged; “hey kid, what do you want?” the corporal demands.

“To report a killing sir,” Axel says and quietly waits for the trooper’s response.

“Who?”

“Henry Wilson – at his hut out along Stringers Creek.”

“It was the blacks for sure, I always said the mad bugger would end up dead,” the corporal unsurprisingly suggests.

“Yes it was the blacks,” Axel agrees.

“When did this happen?”

“It is my opinion it occurred two days previous. I was passing on my way home last night and found him.”

The corporal exhales loudly, “I suppose we better go and investigate.” He is searching Axel’s face for some kind of recognition. “Don’t I know you?” he quizzically asks.

“My name is Axel South.”

“Yea it’s that flaming red hair of yours; it would give away the devil himself. So that’s what you call yourself these days?”

Axel doesn’t reply.

“What do you reckon Tucker?” the corporal asks of his fellow.

“About what Jones?”

“We go take a look-see at what strife Wilson got himself into.”

“I suppose. Are you sure he’s dead, kid?”

“If he isn’t he is a sound sleeper and I would think the spear in his chest is a certain giveaway,” Axel insolently responds.

On reaching Wilson’s hut they notices his corpse had been discovered by a native dog that was about to have its fill of decaying human flesh. Tucker fires at the Dingo but misses, the ball lodges in the wall close by Wilson’s body displacing a spray of timber splinters.

“You were never a marksman Tucker,” the corporal conveys.

“It was a moving target Corp’.”

“Huh – excuses.”

The troopers approach and Axel removes the scant covering he had placed the previous night.

Without the slightest showing of empathy the troopers stand peering down on the man’s misfortune, as if his remains were nothing more than that of some deceased animal.

“He’s dead alright,” Jones says.

“Did you break the spear?” Tucker asks Axel.

“It appears Wilson managed to break the shaft before he passed out through lack of blood.”

“Where is the broken shaft?”

“I threw it away.”

“I don’t suppose you recognised whose handiwork it was?” Jones asks.

“No sir it was just a lance, no markings that I recognised,” Axel lies as he didn’t want the military searching through his hunting area for the night visitor who came begging for grog.

“What do you reckon Tucker, should we take him back to Parramatta?”

“Na, just bury him and report the incident, he’s starting to stink.” Once spoken Jones finds a shovel leaning against the hut wall, returning he offers it to Axel, “there you go kid, start digging.”

“It’s not my job,” Axel protests.

“Either you start digging, or we’ll run you in on some charge,” Jones demands.

“I’ve done nothing.” Axel protests.

“You will have by the time we reach Parramatta and chuck you in the lockup.”

It is late afternoon by the time Axel managed the hole and Wilson’s remains are unceremoniously dumped in. “Aren’t you going to say a few words to send him on his way?” Axel asks as the last of the soil covers the corpse’s distorted expression.

“You can if you want,” Jones says.

“I am not religious.”

“There is your answer kid,” Jones turns to Tucker, “right burn the hut and corn and we better be on our way, I don’t fancy trying to find the way back in the dark.”

“Don’t do that!” Axel protests.

“We have to kid.”

“Why?”

“The corn is almost ready for harvest; we can’t leave it to the blacks.”

“Can I have the hut?”

“What do you know about farming?” Tucker laughs.

“I can learn.”

Jones gives a head nod towards the path to home, “come on Tucker leave the kid with it, as it is my guess we’ll be back in no time to bury the kid, we can burn the lot of it then.”

A well of excitement is building in Axel as he stands inside the dark space of Wilson’s hut. He had never been invited inside before as Wilson wasn’t accommodating towards visitors. There had been short exchanges of conversation but from distance, sometimes Wilson’s mood would be jolly and he would say mind as you go lad, mostly it was gruff and disassociating, even as far as accusing Axel of being in league with the blacks.

‘Possibly if you were a little kinder to the blacks, you would still be living,’ Axel thinks as he takes stock of his inheritance but to inherit from another’s misfortune would never have been his wish.

It is a sturdy hut with two rooms; the largest holds the bush table, a box for a chair, not two as the man shunned visitors and some shelving. The second room had bedding spread on a rough frame but little more, except for some clothing that was at least three sizes too large for Axel’s lithe body. Returning to the kitchen he finds a paraffin lamp and a small supply of oil with a tinder box close by. It is now growing dark and the lamp is lit, its dull yellow light sends shadows about the hut. On one shelf are Wilson’s meagre supplies, some coffee and sugar covered in small black ants, some dried meat from his drying racks, also covered in ants. More pleasing was a fair supply of powder and shot buried in one corner under hessian sacking but no gun, Axel assumes he had it with him when he was killed and the blacks took it. He gives silent appreciation with the discovery as the blacks weren’t dim-witted and soon learned the value of the white man’s fire stick, fortunately they didn’t have the science or tools to make powder and shot.

As night drew near and the lamplight played with the shadows, Axel felt a wave of anxiety flowing over him, it lifts from the pit of his gut to swell in his airway, he gives a clearing cough but it will not budge. Now it is in his head causing confusion. He wanted to move from his camp and the opportunity is with him but it is frightening. Like the cat with her kittens he could move camp at a moment’s notice to protect his presence but the hut was rooted to the ground and apparent to anyone who may chance by. True it was obvious the blacks knew of his presence in the forest, allowing him to exist and hunt but if he relocated to Wilson’s hut, would they think he was like Wilson, being one more who wished to settle on their land and not simply walk upon it.

Axel leaves the hut and settles close by beside a fallen tree log at the edge of the clearing. His eyes are on the dark image of the hut against the lighter tree line. He can see the lamp’s flickering light through the open shutters of the hut’s single window. It is a precarious sight and worrying. Outside the hut he has the safety of the forest where every sound comes before its creator is upon him, inside the hut he would become like a bird in a cage and as vulnerable.

‘Can I live in such a place?’

‘What of Wilson’s corn?’

‘Could I learn to farm?’

‘What if the blacks return?’

The lamp uses the last of its oil, it flickers and dulls then extinguishes. The hut is in darkness, the trees about are touched by the rising moon. There is movement in the cornfield as some animal of the night forages for a meal. Axel believes it to be a bandicoot. They are small creatures with a long snout and a curse to farmers as they dig their way through potato patches, or nibbled at carrots. The natives hunted them for food but Axel had never bothered, although it was a pouched animal like the kangaroo or wallaby, it was too similar to rats for his liking.

‘What should I do?’ he silently requisitioned from the depths of his mind. Bing outside the hut had settled his gut, as he was at home with the many night calls and the thump of a kangaroo’s feet upon the hard ground, or rustling in the leaf litter.

Even through his fears there is something driving his resolve, it is his need to become part of the human race and not considered the red haired wild boy from the scrub who lives like a black man. He was Axel the hunter and not Tommy No-One the frightened boy, even if most refused to allow him to grow away from that tormented youth.

‘I will make the change,’ he thinks.

‘But not tonight.’

Axel also thinks of his painter and the offer to paint his likeness and give him the finished naked painting.

He laughs.

‘If I take the hut, I would have a wall to hang it on.’

‘Yes I may let him paint my likeness.’

‘But naked?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Or is it more my painter friend is wanting?’

‘More of me?’

He releases a soft chortle in memory of his friend Edward Buckley and those few nights they had shared before Buckley crossed over the mountains to become a farmer of sheep.

‘Possibly I would oblige.’

Axel is grinning.

‘Yes, possibly I will.’

With the morning before the sun has chance to lift out of the tall eastern trees Axel leaves his newly purchased supplies in Wilson’s hut as he departs for his forest camp. He would collect what was there and returning to the hut the hunter would become the farmer. In passing he notices the half acre of corn and a potato patch that was closer to the creek to save the distance to carry water. He perceives Wilsons many buckets and thinks they will be most useful.

There is something else catching the lad’s attention, possibly missed by Wilson that may have lead to his undoing. Between the sprouting potatoes were other plants. Axel immediately recognized the growth as Murnong the wild yam daisy and when in season a staple of the native diet. Wilson had planted his seed potatoes slap bang in the middle of a native Murnong patch.

‘That is something I will need to attend to,’ Axel approaches and kicks at the freshly dug ground, bringing up both potato and Murnong.

‘That is if I am to stay here and remain in spirit with the natives.’

Within the freshness of a new morning thinking becomes clearer and decision easily made. He sees the small plot of corn and the kitchen garden with its variety of struggling plants and believes if a onetime convict like Wilson, who was born to the street in a far away country, could make something of the earth so could he and with a twisting of fate, he would become not only the Axel the hunter but Axel the farmer. He smiles and walks the parameter of Wilson’s clearing, his farm and is satisfied.

Gary’s stories are about life for gay men in Australia’s past and present. Your emails to him are the only payment he receives. Email Gary to let him know you are reading: Conder 333 at Hotmail dot Com

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