Free The River Charm by Belinda Murrell Page A

man.’
    The two stockmen started puffing on their pipes, and Charlotte returned to join her family under the tree.
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    On Saturday afternoon it was supply day. Shepherds and stockmen, farm labourers and sawyers had ridden to the homestead from the huts on the estate and the far-flung outstations to collect their rations and gossip for the week. Some of the men had ridden a full day for their week’s supply of flour, sugar, tea, salt beef and tobacco.
    The estate employed dozens of people – both convicts and free labourers – to herd the large flocks of sheep, cattle and horses, and to tend and harvest the crops of wheat, barley, oats, turnips, hay and peas. In addition, there were sawyers, carpenters, stonemasons, blacksmiths and bricklayers, whose jobs were to cut timber, clear paddocks, build fences, mend tools and construct outbuildings. Many of these men lived isolated lives in huts and camps out in the bush, while others lived in the workers’ huts along the creek.
    Mr Ash had unlocked the storehouse – one of the outbuildings behind the main house – and was super­vising the weighing of flour, sugar and tea into smaller calico sacks with the help of Charley. The crowded, dim room was stacked to the rafters with casks, kegs, sacks, crates and barrels brought down from Sydney by dray. Motes of dust danced in the shaft of sunlight that streamed through the open doorway.
    The storehouse had a counter with weights and measures like a shop. In addition to the basic food rations they received from the estate, the men were also able to purchase other foodstuffs with their wages, such as currants, sardines, pickles and jam.
    Charlotte had been sent to fetch a bag of tea for the kitchen pantry, but she dawdled about the chore, enjoying the escape from the baking in the kitchen. She waited outside in the warm spring sunshine, petting one of the orphan wallabies and lazily letting the sights and sounds wash over her. Dandy Jack and O’Brien the sawyer were standing just inside the door, chatting and smoking their pipes.
    â€˜Did you hear another shepherd’s been murdered by the blacks down south at Hume River?’ said Dandy Jack. ‘Speared.’
    â€˜Poor blighter,’ replied the sawyer, stroking his thick, bushy beard. ‘The natives move quiet as ghosts. He never had a chance.’
    â€˜They say they found the blacks and wiped out the whole camp,’ Dandy Jack continued. ‘Men, women and children.’
    â€˜That’s what they should do here – wipe out the whole danged lot of them.’
    â€˜Missus wouldn’t stand for that,’ retorted Dandy Jack. ‘She’s given strict orders that none of the natives are to be touched.’
    The sawyer spat in the dust. ‘All right for her, safe in the big house,’ he complained. ‘What about us living out in the bush? The natives keep spearing the bullocks.’
    â€˜If it’s not the natives spearing the stock, then it’s the bushrangers shooting them, or the neighbours moon­lighting – it’s all the same to me.’
    John the dairyman came and joined the group, calling out greetings. ‘Did you hear another dray was held up by bushrangers last night just up the road?’ he asked. ‘It was the dray owned by Mr Moses with supplies for his store on its way down from Sydney.’
    Charlotte stopped patting the wallaby and pressed against the wall, listening intently.
    â€˜A tempting target then,’ said Dandy Jack, chewing on the stem of his pipe.
    â€˜The driver set up camp last night where the creek crosses the Southern Road,’ explained John the dairyman, pointing upstream. ‘A group of seven men with black crepe hiding their faces rode up and threatened the passengers with fowling-pieces.’
    â€˜Oh, the cheek of them,’ said O’Brien the sawyer. ‘Was anyone hurt?’
    â€˜The bullock