Ernistine Hill and the Territory Frontier., page-2

  1. 17,848 Posts.
    lightbulb Created with Sketch. 14

    From Chapter 17:  Bradshaw’s Run.

     

    Sam Croker was manager, “Greenhide Sam,” with a brave heart and bitter tongue….

     

    A half-caste rode in, looking for a job. He was Charlie Flanagan, a psychological problem in half-castes, a black white man, with black skin and a white mind. Flanagan was a fine athlete, a wonderful jockey, a good worker and honest as the day. He had four or five good horses. Greenhide gave him a job.

     

    The wet came down. The station blacks sang thankful corrobores while the men in the hut played cribbage, a rifle on the table every night in case of a wild black’s raid. Flanagan was a poor player but he liked gambling with white men. It amused Greenhide to whip the boy with gibes at his dark blood. The half-caste grew viscious and sullen.

     

    In a humid night of ill humours they cut for partners. Greenhide cut Flanagan. He refused “to partner a nigger-let him play with the old Chow”. The boy’s eyes narrowed black with hate. He played badly, a target for Greenhide’s caustic wit. At a cruel jibe, he snatched the gun and shot Greenhide dead.

     

    Ah the Chinese cook skipped out the window and raced for the river,where he spent the night knee-deep in mud. Jock McPhee followed and hid in the dark. It was ninety miles to Victoria River Downs, and suicide to travel through Jasper gorge unarmed. All bridles, guns and tucker were in the hut.  They ventured back in the morning.

     

    Flanagan ran them round at the end of a rifle, one to cook his dinner,the other to dig a grave. He himself sewed Greenhide up in a camp-sheet shroud and twisted a coffin of galvanized iron…but he was uneasy and slept not a wink that night. The black in him dreaded the place of the dead.

     

    He rounded up his horses and rode away next morning, first demanding his cheque from Mc Phee, and making out a receipt for it, with stamp duty attached, as a white man would. He rode west to the Ord, to a white man he liked and trusted, F.C. Booty.

     

    Booty was breaking in horses in the yards when Flanagan rode up, the rifle in his hand and a dangerous brooding eye.

    “I just shot old Croker, Mr. Booty. What d’ye reckon I better do? I’ll shoot any -------that tries to take me”

     

    Mr. Booty thoughtfully stroked his beard. “Well, now,” he said in his pleasant English drawl, as though shooting old Croker was no more than shooting a cow.” Well, now, you’ll have to report it, Flanagan, you know. The police will have to register the matter. Jack Kelly’s going to Hall’s----you can ride with him if you like, and he’ll explain to sergeant Brophy.”

     

     

    So Texas Jack Kelly took the half-caste to Hall’s Creek, three days through the lonely ranges, camped with the murderer at night,. From Elvire River, Kelly rode ahead to “explain”, telling Flanagan to follow and “sign the statement”. As he walked into the police station, a constable and a tracker grabbed him from behind the door.

     

    The half-white man was condemned to death by the white man’s law. He said not a word in his own defence in Dawin Supreme Court, and was first to be hanged at  in Fannie Bay jail, where he lived for six months in shackles waiting for the order for his execution to be signed by the governor of Adelaide.. his only desire was to die game. He laughed at the Chaplin’s consolations.

     

    “They’ll make me a stoker in hell,” he said. “You won’t see me hangin ground here with a pair of wings on.’

    The Northern Territory Times records that under the black flag, “he walked to his execution stoic as an Indian and with a firm step as a man set free”.

    And so, he was, set free from the dark prison of his own mind. 



    https://hotcopper.com.au/data/attachments/1432/1432139-6a045820d277ac1379e8348dc4fc6ea0.jpg
    Last edited by RedCedar: 08/02/19
 
arrow-down-2 Created with Sketch. arrow-down-2 Created with Sketch.