HISTORICAL FICTION

 As part of my uni course we have had to write fiction based on historical facts. It doesn't have to be hugely researched, but a news article turned into a story.


This is one I did based on the Cotter's Hold Up. The reference for the newspaper article is at the end.

ISOLATION

The last of the sun’s rays abandon the stringy-bark hut half-hidden among scrubby gums. The galahs are a shrieking stream of pink and grey concealing the sound of the hawker’s arrival. Katie stokes the embers in the fireplace and sets another log upon it. Outside darkness and smoke entwine to create the perfect camouflage.

 

Katie gives a silent prayer of thanks for her eldest child, beautiful, porcelain-skinned Mary, who rocks Elizabeth on her hip while ladling the rich-red stew on each plate. Mary is almost eighteen and already dreaming of the day she will marry and leave. Without Mary, Katie wonders how she will cope. Ten children, another on the way. Maybe it would be better if she resisted Michael a little more, but he’s hard to resist.

 

March nights come quickly in the valleys of the Lachlan. Katie doesn’t mind the damp, biting winters. They remind her of Rathcool. It’s the summers she hates. The unrelenting sound of the cicadas, the snakes in the woodpile and the sun that burns as soon as you step out from the shade.

 

The sound of distant whistling reaches Katie’s ears. She takes comfort knowing Thomas Kerr has returned to his camp.  The hut is hemmed in by scrub that has hosted many highway men. Since gold was discovered at Dead Man’s Creek there are often passer-byers who’d rest an hour, or a night, by the billabong.  Some, like Kerr, have business dealings in the district and are regular visitors but then there were the others. The glint in their eyes would make Katie drag the double barrelled gun from under the bed and keep it close. It was only God’s blessing that Michael had been home when Martin Murphy had laid three bullets into Constable Archer, right outside their gate.

Katie is surprised Kerr hasn’t come calling for Mary. The last two nights she’s watched, clench-fisted, as the old bastard caressed her daughter’s arm, leant in with a secret or two, and bandied about stories of his wealth. Mary isn’t keen either, but she knows that entertaining the old fool’s fantasies is an insurance for them all.

The crickets and frogs battle for the honour of loudest in the hollow. Katie watches the firelight flicker across John’s face and it draws her back to the past. It was seven years and a day since he was conceived. She knows it by the colour of his hair. Mary often puzzles over its copper-shine; so different to the others. But Michael never asks, and she never tells. Michael wears his murderous guilt in silence and Katie’s guilt is worn in the never ending fear that her children will stop loving her.

Michael had left her alone almost a year while he served his sentence. She knew Alice Gibson’s unequivocal trust in Michael was the one reason they were able to stay. Having a shepherd as a husband meant Katie had no want for mutton or wool and Alice had continued to provide for the family in his absence. Katie had spent those lonely nights spinning, dyeing and knitting. The shawl she’d made for Alice was welcomed and worn. The deep red matching the shame Katie felt as she’d finally faced her family’s saviour.

 

Michael had spent the day along the Taylor’s Creek fences. He loved his family, but Katie knew when he was away from them, he enjoyed the serenity. He’d spent the afternoon where a big gum had wreaked havoc on a fence near the creek. But Michael had his revenge, throwing its severed limbs on the dray and taking it to replenish Alice’s stockpile. As usual the canny woman would have drawn him into conversation. It never failed to amuse Katie how a teetotaller could always find him a whiskey.

 

The crickets have lost and the frogs are worn out. A whinny echoes nearby. Katie peers out through the crack in the curtains. Kerr is silhouetted by his campfire. He’s not alone.

 

An invisible creature crunches the gravel near the garden. Katie silences the children. The sound of snapping branches creeps around the house. She is torn between calling out and keeping quiet. There is no doubt, someone is in the yard.

 

For her children’s sake she wears a smile but inside she is a nervous deer ready for flight. She gestures to Mary to reach under the bed. It’s too late. The door creaks opened. Katie looks Kerr up and down and opens her mouth, ready to curse him for his unannounced visit. But the two, soot-blackened faces prodding him through the door stops her dead.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Empire

 

Goulburn Herald and County of Argyle Advertiser

Gundaroo Historical Society Genealogy, ‘Bushranging at Wheeo’, https://www.gundaroo.info/genealogy/other/bushrangingatwheeo.pdf, accessed 14 October 2020