Albert of Adelaide Read online

  Albert dropped a pile of sticks next to Jack and went back into the bush to look for more wood. By the time he returned to the camp, Jack had a fire going and the billycan hanging over it.

  Twilight was rapidly fading to darkness, and the heat and light from the fire were welcome. Jack opened a couple of cans of sardines, and as soon as the water in the billycan boiled, he poured tea into the tin cups. He and Albert ate the sardines and drank their tea in silence. The night became colder and Albert pulled his coat tightly around him. After Jack finished the last sardine, he stared at the empty tin for a moment before tossing it into the night beyond the campfire.

  “Adelaide may have pushed you out into this desert, Albert, but it was claustrophobia that drove me here.”

  Jack paused to pour more tea into his cup. “I don’t know how much you know about wombats, Albert, but we’re a boring lot, let me tell you.”

  “I’ve seen one or two from a distance, but you’re the first one I’ve ever talked to,” Albert replied.

  “We live in deep holes, come out in the early morning or late in the evening, eat some leaves, and then call it a day. What kind of life is that? What is there to talk about? Nothing, that’s what. Entire conversations consisting of ‘What did you do today, Earl?’ ‘I ate some leaves, Frank. What did you do?’ ‘I ate some grass and then I slept in a dark hole for twenty-two hours.’ ‘What are you going to do tomorrow, Frank?’ ‘I hadn’t thought about it, Earl, but I might eat some leaves.’ My God, Albert, what kind of life is that?”

  Except for all those leaves, the life didn’t sound too bad to Albert. “Quiet.”

  “Damn right it’s quiet. It was too damn quiet for me.” Jack spit a tea leaf into the fire. “I never could stand the darkness. It made me crazy, and I made my mother and father crazy in return. As soon as I got out of the pouch, I started crawling toward the light. They tried to stop me for a while, embarrassed by what the neighbors would think, I guess. I got bigger and finally they stopped bothering with me. My mother cried occasionally when I’d leave, but that was all. I stayed out all day and at night I’d sleep outside the mouth of the burrow so I could see the stars… Every day I would walk farther and farther from that damn hole in the ground, and one day I walked so far I couldn’t find my way back.”

  Jack stopped talking and stared into the fire.

  “How did you get here?” Albert asked.

  “I just kept walking and one day here I was. The Famous Muldoon told me once that he thought that everybody who walks far enough eventually ends up here. But Muldoon had strange ideas and I never took much stock in them.”

  “But where is here?” Albert persisted.

  “I can’t tell you that, Albert, because I don’t know myself. I can tell you that where we are is real and it’s a place that can get you killed if you’re not careful.”

  “But what about the other places, the place where everything was like it used to be or the place where those men with the spears and boomerangs live?”

  “You hear a lot of stories out here, Albert—some true, some not. Maybe if you’d walked in another direction, you would have found those places. But you didn’t.”

  Jack got up and took the billycan off the hook on the tripod and used the dregs of the tea to douse the fire. “They say that others were here before we were. You can see the drawings they left on the rocks, and those old ones claimed that every bush and every stone had its own spirit.”

  Albert got his blanket out of the pack and wrapped it around himself. “Do you believe that?”

  “I don’t hold much stock in those stories… Still, on windy evenings I sometimes think that the stones are singing to me. I just shrug it off, tell myself that I’m getting old and leave it at that.”

  “What do they say?”

  “They don’t say anything. It’s just the imagination of someone who’s been alone in the desert too long.”

  “What is it that you imagine they say?” Albert insisted.

  “They say that there is no point to it all and that everyone that has ever sat on them, crossed by them, or picked them up was coming from nowhere and going to the same place. They giggle a bit and are quiet for a long time. Then they start singing the same song all over again.”

  “Are you sure it’s your imagination? Maybe they are really talking to you.”

  Jack smiled. “Generally, rocks aren’t that intelligent.”

  He turned away from Albert, walked to the edge of the clearing, and relieved himself on a bush before going to bed.

  4

  Ponsby Station

  The dirt track that led to the center of Ponsby Station went through an old watercourse that had created a shallow gully on the edge of town. Pieces of corrugated tin had been shoved into the sides of the gully at uneven intervals, each piece shading a hole that had been dug into the dirt banks. Ragged flowers in old coffee cans or in pieces of broken crockery graced the shade under some of the protruding tin, and they were the only bits of color in a landscape made up in shades of brown and yellow.

  As Jack and Albert walked down the track, Albert could hear an occasional whistle come from one of the holes. “Who lives here?”

  “Bandicoots, most likely. They sleep days.”

  Albert was surprised. “Haven’t you been here before?”

  Jack shifted the pack to a more comfortable position on his back. “Can’t say as I have. It doesn’t matter, though. All these places are pretty much the same: bandicoots on one side of town, rock wallabies on the other, all of them working shifts in a half-played-out mine, just trying to get by.”

  Two hundred yards later, the track opened up into the center of Ponsby Station.

  A large ramshackle building stood in the center of a flat piece of ground on the edge of a mining operation. Flattopped hills of mine tailings dwarfed the building, and broken ore carts were scattered along a rusting track leading into the hills beyond the station.

  The building at one time had been painted white, but now the walls were nothing but weathered wood with occasional patches of peeling paint. Metal signs advertising beer and tobacco had been nailed up on the ends of the building, but they, too, had weathered, and rusty streaks obscured the painted messages from better times.

  The building had a tin roof extending over a long wooden verandah that ran the length of the front wall. A couple of old benches and a spittoon graced the verandah near the front door. The door was closed and the benches were empty.

  On the roof was a large sign, also much faded, which read:

  PONSBY STATION

  GENERAL MERCANTILE

  “Quality Goods at a Fair Price”

  Sing Sing O’Hanlin, Prop.

  Jack stopped in front of the building. He looked up at the sign and smiled. “Here goes nothin’, Albert. Stay close.”

  He climbed up onto the verandah, opened the front door of the mercantile, and walked in. Albert followed him inside.

  Inside, the store was not brightly lit. What light there was filtered in from two windows in the back and a dirty skylight over the counter that ran half the length of the store. Behind the counter were shelves of canned goods, bolts of cloth, general hardware, and odd pieces of clothing. A rifle rack holding a rusty flintlock musket and two Enfield carbines sat at one end of the counter. In front of the rifle rack was a glass case containing a few percussion pistols.

  The back half of the store was a dirt-floor bar and sporting arena. The bar was two wide planks set across some empty beer barrels. The arena was just an open space with a few wooden bleachers against the wall away from the bar.

  A tapped beer keg rested on the planks. The back bar was a long shelf full of whiskey bottles and beer glasses. Above the shelf was a cracked mirror and a series of posters advertising prize-fights that had been fought long ago. Each poster had a picture of a kangaroo wearing shorts on it. The kangaroos had their fists up and appeared to be snarling.

  Behind the bar stood a large red kangaroo wearing an apro
n and a dirty silk shirt with garters on the sleeves. A pair of wire-rimmed spectacles rested on his nose. Across the bar from the kangaroo were two bandicoots wearing canvas overalls. The bandicoots were so drunk they were having trouble standing up.

  Jack walked up next to the bandicoots, took off his pack, and set it on the bar. Albert followed him to the bar.

  “I assume that’s beer in the barrel,” Jack said.

  The kangaroo looked over his glasses at Jack. “And I assume that there’s money in your pocket.”

  One of the bandicoots snickered. Jack pulled a couple of English shillings out of his coat pocket and put them on the bar. “My money is probably better than your whiskey, but I’m willing to take a chance.”

  The other bandicoot snickered.

  The kangaroo looked at the money and then at Albert. “Are you the only one drinking?”

  “I didn’t come in here alone. I don’t plan to drink alone. Two beers.”

  The kangaroo shook his head. “I can’t serve him,” he said, pointing at Albert.

  At that point, Albert was much more curious than insulted. Jack’s eyes narrowed and he was quiet for a moment before he spoke. “And why would that be?”

  The kangaroo gestured to another sign next to the cracked mirror that read:

  WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE

  TO ANYONE WHO ISN’T A MARSUPIAL

  The Management

  “He’s going to have to leave. House rules.”

  Albert spoke for the first time. “I’m a platypus.”

  The kangaroo adjusted his spectacles with his front paw and took a closer look at Albert. “I never saw anything like you before, and I assume that anything I haven’t seen didn’t come from a pouch… until proven otherwise.”

  “Got to be a marsupial,” said one bandicoot, nodding his head sagely.

  “Marsupial,” agreed the other bandicoot.

  As both bandicoots and the kangaroo stared at Albert, he could feel the spurs on his hind legs start to extend themselves. The more they stared, the more they reminded Albert of the people at the zoo, and with each look the anger in Albert’s soul burned brighter. At the zoo there was nothing he could do, but here he might be allowed the luxury of a violent act. The sound of Jack’s voice momentarily halted Albert’s downward spiral into rage and the relief of mayhem.

  “I say he’s a platypus, and you had best leave it at that.”

  Jack’s voice was still calm, but the pepperbox pistol was now sitting on the bar in front of the kangaroo. Both of Jack’s paws were resting on the bar next to the pistol.

  The kangaroo eyed the pistol a moment before saying, “I suppose I could make an exception in this case. I just use that sign to keep the riffraff out, anyway. What’s a platypus?”

  The bandicoots, oblivious to what was going on, continued to stare at Albert. “We could look at his private parts,” offered one of them.

  Albert hit the bandicoot as hard as he could with his front paw. The bandicoot flew across the arena for a few feet before hitting the floor and rolling over to the wooden bleachers. Albert had never hit anyone before and was surprised how satisfying it felt. The spurs in his hind legs began to recede.

  The other bandicoot looked over at Albert and said between hiccups, “Good shot, mate. I always thought he was a bit of a poof.”

  The other bandicoot got up and lurched toward the bar. “Who are you calling a poof?”

  The bandicoot in front of Albert put up his fists. “Who was volunteering to look at someone’s private parts, Roger?”

  “I said we could look, Alvin.”

  “Don’t involve me in your nasty plans, you pervert.”

  At that point Alvin staggered across the room and launched himself at Roger. The bandicoots began rolling around the floor, kicking, biting, and scratching one another.

  Jack took the pistol off the bar and put it in his pocket. He watched the bandicoots for a moment, then took another shilling from his pocket and put it on the bar. “A bob on the one with the other one’s ear in his mouth.”

  The kangaroo took a shilling out of a pocket in his apron and laid it on the bar next to Jack’s coin. “Done. Your bet’s on Roger. He’s the meaner of the two. But he gets tired quicker than Alvin.”

  Jack held out his paw. “Jack’s the name.”

  The kangaroo took Jack’s paw and shook it. “Sing Sing O’Hanlin, proprietor and acting captain, Ponsby Station Fusiliers.”

  “Fusiliers?” Jack let go of O’Hanlin’s paw.

  “The Fusiliers are our local militia, organized for the defense of Ponsby Station. We meet on Saturdays, march around a little bit, and then we all come over here for a drink. There’s good money in those meetings, let me tell you.”

  Sing Sing took a couple of beer glasses from the back bar, filled them from the keg, and set one in front of Jack and one in front of Albert. “Sorry about any misunderstanding. We don’t get many platypuses in here… In fact, you’re the first. Have a beer… on the house.”

  Albert took the beer and thanked Sing Sing, but he didn’t feel grateful at all. He was beginning to feel that his escape from the zoo and his flight through the desert had been for nothing. Here he was, where Old Australia was supposed to be, a place where he was to have a home, friends, and others of his kind. Now he was finding that the only way he could even get a beer in this country was at gunpoint.

  The bandicoots were beginning to tire. They lay on the floor of the arena and held on to each other by the straps of their overalls, trying to catch their breath. Periodically, one would get up the energy to kick or bite the other, and the scuffle would start all over again.

  “Kind of quiet around here,” Jack observed, taking a sip of his beer.

  O’Hanlin took a glass off the back bar and began to polish it with his apron. “Give it a couple of hours. The wallabies will be getting off shift and the bandicoots will be getting ready to go on. Payday was two days ago, and some of ’um still have money left. They’ll get a two-up game going, or maybe a prizefight…”

  He looked over at Albert with new appreciation. “Say, this platypus here has a good right hook and…”

  “The name’s Albert, Albert of Adelaide,” said Albert crossly.

  Sing Sing didn’t miss a beat. “Albert here has a good right hook. We could probably get up a fight that could make us a little money. Nobody here has ever seen a platypus, and they’d figure he’d be easy pickings for one of the local heroes. Might get two… even three-to-one odds.”

  “I used to fight for money,” said Jack. “There’s no future in it.”

  “You a boxer?” asked Sing Sing.

  “Wrestled, mostly.”

  “Boxing is what most people want to see nowadays,” said Sing Sing, pointing up at the posters of the boxing kangaroos. “More blood, more action.”

  Sing Sing picked up another glass to polish and continued, “If the Famous Muldoon hadn’t disappeared, maybe people would still be interested in wrestling.”

  Jack took another drink of beer. “Muldoon could draw a crowd, that’s for sure.”

  “Ever see him fight?” asked O’Hanlin.

  “Once or twice,” said Jack. “What do you say, Albert, want to make a little money punching the locals?”

  Albert had never had a beer before and was beginning to get light-headed. “I’ve spent enough of my life having people stare at me.”

  Jack put his empty beer glass on the bar. “I guess that’s a no, Mr. O’Hanlin.” Jack picked up his pack and slung it over one shoulder. “Albert and I’ll make camp outside of town and come back when things get a little more lively… Have you got a hat and coat that might fit Albert?”

  O’Hanlin looked Albert up and down. “Got a vest, anyway. Let’s take a look.” He walked out from behind the bar and over to the store.

  Just then the bandicoots, completely exhausted, quit fighting. They lay on their backs next to each other on the dirt floor.

  “I’m sorry, Roger.
”

  “So am I, Alvin.”

  “Even if you are a poof, Roger, you’re the best mate a fellow could have.”

  “That’s right, we’re mates.”

  Roger began to sob uncontrollably. Alvin reached over, patted Roger, and began crying.

  O’Hanlin looked at the bandicoots and shook his head. “I should have told you. They do that sometimes.”

  “It’s not a pretty sight,” Jack said as he picked up one of the shillings from the bar, “not a pretty sight at all.”

  5

  The Evil Gin Does

  As they walked back into Ponsby Station that evening, Albert had much on his mind. He and Jack had set up a camp a few miles out of town. They had spoken very little during the walk to the camp, and even less as they were setting out their gear. Albert guessed that O’Hanlin’s reference to the Famous Muldoon was bothering Jack. After all, Jack had told Albert that he knew Muldoon. But, when O’Hanlin mentioned Muldoon to him, Jack had avoided the subject. Albert would have liked to ask Jack more about the Famous Muldoon, but he didn’t want to press him on what was obviously a sore subject.

  The clothes he had gotten at the mercantile made him feel a little less conspicuous than he had felt wearing the outsized hat and coat Jack had loaned him. O’Hanlin’s selection of clothing had been limited, most of the items having been taken in pawn and never claimed. However, after sorting through what was there, Albert, with Jack’s help, had selected a fairly clean tweed vest and a much-repaired short canvas jacket with deep side pockets to wear over the vest. Finding a hat had been a little more difficult, but Albert finally settled on a battered kepi with a leather bill. The bill on the hat shaded the bill on Albert’s face and he thought it looked rather jaunty in the cracked mirror behind the bar. Jack also found a small rucksack that fit Albert, so they took that also.

  Albert had never had to pay for anything before. Life on the Murray had been a matter of digging a burrow and catching lunch in a river that abounded with shrimp and crayfish. The zoo in Adelaide fed its captives with monotonous regularity, but the animals themselves never had to collect the money or buy the food. Now, Albert found that in order to survive he was required to buy clothes and eat canned food; someone had to pay for it.