‘Okay, okay,’ said Lovett.
‘So get. But before ya do, tell Charlie here you’re sorry for what ya done. Oh, and don’t tell the Brothers, otherwise you’ll be walkin’ the line – my line.’
But two days later, Lovett told his special friend – the hulking Brother John. Late that evening, the “line” was assembled and Fox was dragged into the meeting hall by two brown robed Brothers. With a clutch of cassocked tormentors nearby, Brother John stood at the head of the line, huge, aroused and leering; right arm hanging uselessly.
‘So Fox, not so clever now are we?’ he mumbled, his speech affected by the stroke. ‘After this, Tower for a month! Get down that line,’ he bellowed. With that, Fox was hurled into “the line”.
But Fox had his own ideas and the line was not among them. After the Brothers released him he dived to the floor in a forward roll smoothly rising to sprint to the end. He ran at Brother John, leapt, somersaulted and delivered a mighty kick to John’s chest. Shocked, unable to defend himself, John thumped onto his arse and sprawled on his back.
Pandemonium erupted as the boys watched Fox’s powerful and brazen defiance. They whooped and hollered, stomping their feet when Fox broke three of Brother John’s fingers by viciously plunging his boot heel onto his scrabbling left hand. Fox turned and glared at the clustering, brown demons, staring them down, his own malevolence outgunning their resolve and anger. An uneasy silence fell.
‘Lovett, you slimy bastard,’ called Fox softly, ‘I warned ya to tell your bum-fuckin’ mates to leave us alone. Ya brought this down on yourself.’ He gestured to the remnant line. ‘You’re dead. I’m sendin’ your black soul to hell. And while that’s happenin’, don’t think ya can be saved. No one’s gonna’ worry about ya. Ya head will be filled with snakes and you’re gonna waste away. I warned ya.’ Fox’s quiet voice was menacing and unequivocal. He turned to Brother John. ‘I’m not goin’ to the Tower and you’re joinin’ Lovett.’
Stunned by Fox’s audacity, no one tried to stop him as he stalked from the hall. Ten minutes later, when three brown vultures hunted for Fox to punish him, they found that he and his meagre possessions had vanished.
CHAPTER 5
1970
By the age of seventeen, Fox had worked for two years with Joe Darrigan’s Boxing Troupe. He was lean, muscular and tough. At five feet ten and weighing eleven stone, Darrigan decreed Fox good enough to mix it with the suckers. On this afternoon, he was on the platform banging the old base drum: ba – boom, ba – boom, ba – boom. Behind him, a weathered mural portrayed long past pugs in a montage of combative postures. Tent boxing these days was a threatened activity. Whispers from government, as yet unconfirmed, hinted at new rules to control fight frequency. The do-gooders proclaimed: too brutal, too crude, too violent, too foul. Too uncomfortable.
‘Bloody neo-religionists,’ Darrigan had responded, ‘too thick to realise one of Australia’s best known pastors, Doug Nicholls, was a tent boxer.’
Ba – boom, ba – boom, ba – boom. Darrigan whistled through his fingers and bellowed, ‘Holdah! Holdah! Holdah! C’mon boys – step right up and give it a go. Don’t be lily-livered. Twenty dollars to go the round – fifty if youse last the full distance. Show us ya courage. Holdah! Holdah! Holdah! If youse have a score ta settle this is the place! Who’s gunna take on “Killer” Conroy here? Me little firecracker from Tassy. Get up here “Killer”.’ Darrigan whistled again. “Killer” Conroy, a short, nuggety man in his early fifties climbed onto the platform, white towel around his neck, resplendent in a crimson satin robe.
‘“Killer” here, ladies and gents, is a gun woodcutter from Tasmania. He’s yusta felling big bluegums and mountain ash. Shearers, stockmen and miners are mere kindling to ’im.’ The balding Conroy, whose original features had been generously reshaped by his many battles, scowled at the crowd.
One by one, showcased in spurious tales of pugilistic glory, Fox drummed Darrigan’s team onto the platform – a colourful, pseudo belligerent, shockforce of warriors. And slowly too, the platform filled with volunteers as Darrigan conned them from the throng, challenging their manhood with his mixture of flattery, scorn and financial reward.
Fox paused as Darrigan continued his invocation. Indifferently, he scanned the crowd, wondering who next would step up to the mark. The mugs were all types: serious brawlers, bullies, brash kids, tough stockmen, half drunks chasing a quid and occasionally, the odd nervous one who wanted to boast later that he’d done it – mixed it with Darrigan’s finest. Country boys loved a stoush, especially the Aboriginals. In the heat and dust of the outback, tensions could fester. The boxing tent brought legitimate and colourful relief, and men and women alike flocked to the spectacle when it hit town.
Fox’s eye fell upon a lanky sun bronzed man with features as sharp as gibber rocks. Skinny – bloody – Rogers! That bloody copper bastard who, with that vile turd Mullett, had pinched him and Lucy! He raked Rogers with a cold glare. He hadn’t seen him in more than ten years and instantly wanted to batter the shit out of him. Darrigan’s policy wouldn’t allow that, even if he could. He used the beat of the drum to calm his turbulent feelings. He remembered Rogers’ iron fists and how they’d flattened the men of his camp. Ba – boom, ba – boom, ba – boom. Mentally, he began to challenge Rogers, to draw him near, every beat a blow upon his soul.
The transition to Darrigan’s had not been easy. From conversations with old men at Moore River Fox learned of three girls who ran away from the place in 1931 to find their way home by following the rabbit proof fence. The old men also told him about Geoff Guest. Guest was an Aboriginal boy sent to a cattle property near Toowoomba in 1936. Aged only eleven, sometime during 1939 – 1940, Guest fled the station after its English overseer inflicted a serious flogging that left him badly scarred and stuttering. Guest had breached the Englishman’s decree that no Aboriginal was to speak indoors. One afternoon, while alone with the overseer, Guest spoke. Enraged, the man grabbed his whip to deliver a hiding but Guest got in first and felled him with his own lead-tipped yard whip. Fearing he had killed the man, Guest shot through. The escape had been long planned for the right time and a horse and provisions were stashed in readiness. Fox filed this story in his memory bank and at Mount Barker, began hiding his own stores in the bush.
After upending Brother John, Fox dashed to his cubicle, grabbed his hat, stuffed Lobsang Rampa and his few clothes into a sugar bag and slipped silently into the night. Unlike Guest, he had no firearm or tools but he did take a horse and saddle and rode to his stores about a mile north of the mission. His plan was simple: live off the land and make his way to Turkey Creek via the Canning Stock Route. The “wallopers” would soon be after him so he needed to stay out of their way and make as much ground as possible.
Cantering under starlit skies Fox skirted the vineyards and worked his way deep into the bush, an ugly chapter of his life abandoned in idyllic surroundings. East lay the beautiful Porongurups, a ribbon of ancient hills first seen by white man in 1829, four years after convicts settled at Albany. North was the breathtaking Stirling Range. A spine rich with wildflowers, craggy peaks, heaths, woodlands, birds, animals and thick scrub. For Fox, it was a veritable supermarket. By dawn he had reached Kalgan River – forty-nine miles lay between himself and the mission.
His dreams informed him that he would be okay all the way to Turkey Creek, 1700 miles north. After that, he had to be patient.
Ten days out from the mission and 350 miles on, Fox veered east from Southern Cross to skirt Lake Deborah East. A tourist information board said the Lakes, settled in the 1890s, were surrounded by granite outcrops and fresh water wells. These days, the “Cross” was prominent because of its commercial wildflower crops and rich flora – delicate salmon gums and red barked gimlets. The board mentioned too that camels used during an 1891 Elder Scientific Expedition were troubled by lack of