The sky never stopped. It fired with azure light, a piercing brightness that carved its harsh way into the watcher’s eyes to bake their minds dry. Sun sickness, she had heard it said, but she knew better. There was an amazing beauty to a land that weathered under a sky like that. It was the beauty that crawled inside a soul and called to it, promising wonders that held them all captive.
And they thought they were here for gold.
Bethan McReedy smiled as she spread the last of her brood’s many shirts on the river rocks to bake under that sky. She leaned back, as far as her body would allow, to un-kink the damage from kneeling by the creek bed all morning, scrubbing and beating at the fabric. The sun bathed her face and she could not help but smile even in the midst of her discomfort. Joe had taken every pot, pan and bowl they owned down into the claim. The tiny pit mine was even smaller then the one they had dug out in California. It had run dry, but not until it had earned them enough for passage to Australia and the mineral rich fields of Victoria.
Bethan did not mind the old fashioned way of washing their clothes, although young Ian and Eliza would have to help out soon. She was growing too big with the babe to spend that much time down on her knees. Bethan winced as she went to move towards some softer ground in the shades of the eucalypts, their types so numerous and their scent overwhelming. Leaning back with a contented sigh, Bethan allowed herself to be lulled by the flow of the creek and the constant bush noises, falling into waking dream where the constant sounds of the still alien forest were remembered as the sounds and scents of home.
“Ma! MA!”
Bethan sat up with a start as her son, a tall rangy lad freckled so much he seemed tanned, scurried towards her. The panic in her throat receded as she saw her two daughters, gentle dreamy Eliza and tough little Maggie, vainly trying to keep up with their brother.
“Oh, Ma, you got tae see this,” he skidded to a stop by her side, grabbing at her hands to help her to her feet.
“What is it? What’s got ye all in a bother? Nae another snake, please.”
“Nae, Ma, there’s one of those wee yellow men coming through the fields and he has a tree in a wheelbarrow.” This was said by Eliza, her eyes huge with the wonder of it.
“They are China-men, Eliza, nae ‘yellow’ anything and are ye sure it’s a tree? It canna have been very big.” Bethan said.
“It’s fully grown, Ma. Swear tae God,” Ian said, his awe and excitement seemed to vibrate out of his skin.
“Tree, tree,” Maggie crowed in agreement and tugged on Bethan’s fingers. Bemused, Bethan allowed herself to be dragged up the slope that dipped down in the little valley carved by the creek, then looked down river to the out stretching vista of Tarrangower fields.
Bethan immediately picked out the figure making its slow progress through the narrow strips that were the pegged out walk ways between the claims. An odd growing silence spread around him like ripples as more and more miners stopped their diggings to watch as he went by, but it was not the man, or indeed the wheelbarrow and tree that caused such a stillness. Instead it was the smallish figure, draped in red veils, following him with delicate steps.
“See, Ma. Tree,” Little Maggie prompted.
Bethan bent and gathered her youngest up into her arm while the other unerringly searched out to draw Ian and Eliza to her side. Bethan had met the China-men when she and Joe had first tried their luck in California. For all that she had lived close by to them there, and now in Tarrangower, she had not yet learned anything of them. They were a silent and enigmatic people and a strong feeling of dread filled her as Bethan watched the already established China-men draw back from him, their fellow countryman, as if he was diseased.
