That Deadman Dance Read Online Free Page B

because here there were opportunities unavailable at home. He had land aplenty, and to develop it and increase their capital they needed only energy and initiative. And courage. In his letter Cross didn’t say he had those qualities, couldn’t really explain what compelled him to stay.
    He heard the sound of quick light steps descending the companion ladder. The door opened, a dark head appeared around its edge, pulled back. The door closed again, and Cross smiled as knuckles rapped the timber.
    Come in, Bobby.
    Sunlight spilled in as Bobby entered; it must have been some coincidence of the ship’s angle on the swell, a door ajar upon the deck, the placement of sun in the sky. Cross blinked, smiled once again at the boy’s enthusiasm, his bright and cheerful spirit. Bobby scanned the desk.
    Later maybe?
    Thank you, Bobby. I really must complete this. He waved his hand absently across the desk. Coughed. My wife and family.
    The door closed quietly, the quick footsteps ascending. Cross’s hovering pen. This letter to write, then another seeking confirmation of his land grants. He would explain to his wife that he’d resigned as military surgeon once the garrison had been ordered to return to Sydney. He had been granted land as per the capital he’d bring to the colony—thanks to his wife’s recent inheritance—and perhaps having at one time been Ship’s Surgeon to the newly appointed governor had helped.
    His wavering pen … There were things he could not explain, even to himself. Past the middle of his life and having survived the war against Napoleon and the many years away from his family, why did he now offer them this risk? His experience and knowledge of the fledgling colony and his acknowledged good relations with its natives only seemed to diminish his personal sense of authority. Now he had encouraged others to come live among them.
    Cross listened to the water rushing along the hull. Appreciated the cabin’s low ceiling. Thought he might curl up in a ball.

Ships and home
    Oh imagine sailing on one of those very fine days on the ocean. Clear sky, sun and bright air, foam and bubbles at bow and wake, and taut, swelling sails. Bobby felt like a bird, rising on a sweep of air; he felt like a dolphin slipping easily in and out of the wave face.
    The deck tilted mostly one way, and its regular beat at that angle put a rhythm to Bobby’s step, a walking-uphill-downhill thing that, even with no music and no one singing out loud, made him want to dance. A flourish of limbs embellished the rhythm and energy of the boat as it fell from wave crest to valley; different steps were needed when it wallowed, or balanced on the peak of a rushing ocean ridge.
    Dr Cross had his violin, and while his breath came hard, and he could sometimes not speak for coughing, the violin’s voice soared and swooped, spiralling on and on with no pause. The new man, Mr Chaine, danced. A jig, they said, his feet springing up from the deck again and again, as if he did not want to be there at all. His children laughed and clapped their hands, and jumped up and down, too. And beneath all this the steady accompaniment of the wind, the sea, the boat’s passage.
    Bobby grinned, laughed out loud with the joy of it all; the bubbling foam in his blood, the salt air in his lungs, the differing rhythms. And now this jig. The shifting deck made it impossible not to be moving; the rhythm of it set his muscles trembling, gathered energy to show these people, this strangely dancing man and his children.
    The violin stopped. Cross was hacking into his handkerchief, the violin and bow held out in one hand … Chaine was puffing and red-faced. Bobby let his feet take him, let the boat and the ocean beneath it set him in motion. His arms were the sails of a ship, the wings of a bird; his legs lifted him into flight, swooping, rising, swooping. He put his own voice to it.
    A lone seabird, white, trailed the boat, following its milky white path from above. A