Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (34 page)

‘Terrible thing to die alone without a mate,’ the prospector said dreamily after swallowing the jerky. ‘All the gold in the world won’t buy a good mate. That’s something that just happens, Yank.’ His shrunken stomach refused to take any more food and even the small piece he had swallowed made him feel nauseous. He was slipping in and out of a blissful world where there was no pain. Just a long and deep sleep. His spirit was ready to leave and tears streamed down his sun-blackened face as he cried silently.

Luke turned away. Better a man cry in private. For the prospector, his tears were those of regret. Regret for finding a fortune – but losing the woman he loved. Somewhere there was a woman waiting and she would wait no more. None of it had been worth the years on the plains and in the hills, forever searching for a dream that could not bring happiness. When his tears were spent, the prospector lay back and fell into a fevered sleep.

Luke set up camp after he made the prospector as comfortable as possible. Finding the dying man had given him a mirror to his own life. The dying prospector was himself, in another time and another place. A spear, starvation, snakebite or a fall from his horse. One way or the other, death would come.

But he did not want to die alone in a place so far from the giant sequoias of his beloved California. Never before had Luke realised how much he missed the country of his birth.

He gazed out at the endless grey scrub and the ancient eroded red hills that hedged the dry valley. Fleeting memories came to him of another place and another time. Memories of stately forests of dark green fir trees whose tops swayed and sighed to the cool mountain breezes of northern California. Homesick memories of the splendid beauty of the majestic Rocky Mountains under a white blanket of winter snows and the pristine clear mountain streams gurgling sweetly across the green grass-covered valley floors.

Memories of his childhood, growing up among the summer fields of golden maize basking in the warmth of a gentle sun, crept to him with a soft kiss of the woman who had been his mother.

How old was he now? Thirty-three . . . thirty-four . . . Luke could not remember. The years of roaming were a blur that stretched back to the singular pivotal points in his life. Of mining camps and the rebellion. Of his dead wife and child. He was hardly aware that he was weeping. He was homesick for the land of his birth and yet he had grown to accept the harshness of the land that he had spent half his life roaming around in search of the elusive big strike. Maybe it was time to go home.

But there was Kate . . .

He could see her face in front of him, her beautiful warm smile, and for just a fleeting instant he thought he could smell the hint of lavender on the hot breeze. It was as if she were with him – as she had been with him when they had ridden together in search of her father’s grave.

Instinctively he cast about to see if she was preparing the camp fire or hobbling the horses. But when he gazed around, he saw only the harsh and ancient land of the shallow sun-baked valley. Kate was gone from him and had become a part of the shimmering haze of the late afternoon.

Nearby, the dying prospector twitched in his sleep and his fevered words were a rambling nonsensical monologue. Luke settled in for the evening to wait for the prospector’s death and hoped that it would be soon. The longer he had to stay by the dying man’s side, the less chance he had of returning south alive.

During the night when the fire had burnt to a soft glow Luke heard the prospector call to him. He sat beside the man, who lay very still, staring with wide eyes up at the constellation of the Southern Cross.

‘Half the gold is yours,’ the prospector whispered hoarsely with a great effort and Luke knew that death was close by, waiting just beyond the glow of the camp fire. ‘The other half give to Miss Rose Jones. She’s a schoolteacher at Toowoomba. Promise me you will look for her. She’s been waitin’ for me for a long time. Always been true. A finer woman I have never known,’ he said with tears in his eyes.

Luke gave his word.

‘I trust you, Yank. That’s all I can say. Nothing much else ’cept there’s been good times . . . and there’s been bad times. Expect you know that. Being a prospector yerself,’ he said with a long sigh and he smiled enigmatically as if remembering something pleasant or funny. He continued to gaze upwards at the heavens at a sky brilliant with a myriad of stars where the Southern Cross was ablaze, lighting the way for the dying prospector.

‘Never did get ’round to introducing meself,’ the prospector whispered as he listened to the voices of his old partners calling to him from the shadows in the night. ‘But names doan mean much when you’re dyin’.’

Luke did not hear the voices. All he could hear were the mournful cries of curlews and the soft crackle of the camp fire as the prospector’s whisper trailed away and was followed by a rattling sound in his throat. He tensed, then with a final sigh, relaxed. Luke knew it was over.

The curlews called in sad and lonely songs to each other as the American sat beside the dead man. Names don’t mean much when you’re dying . . .

When the sun rose in the morning, Luke scratched out a shallow grave for the prospector. He sat with his back to a tree and carefully scratched out on a flat piece of rock with the tip of his knife: Prospector – Mate of Don and Charlie – 1867. The malarial fever was gone and Luke felt better, although weak from the debilitating effects of the illness.

He recovered the gold the prospector had carried with him. It was a small fortune. And he could see from the flattened shape of the nuggets that the gold had probably come from a watercourse. If the size and quantity of the gold nuggets were indicative of what the dying prospector had found in the river of gold . . . And it was somewhere to the north! The years of roaming Australia’s desolate places barely making a living were about to pay off for Luke, who held the largest egg-sized nugget in his hand, testing its weight. But somewhere north might as well have been on the moon, he thought bitterly. He knew he was at the limit of his trek north.

To push on meant precious days he did not have. His food supply was down to a few strips of jerky and the tropical wet season was not far away. He could be trapped between the dry sandy creek and river courses he knew would turn into raging waters. He closed his hand on the nugget and walked over to his horse.

‘Next time, old girl,’ he said with an affectionate pat on her forehead. ‘Next time we come north we’ll find that river, and I’ll make you a set of gold shoes to wear.’

Luke swung himself into the saddle and turned her head south, leaving behind the lonely grave that would be obliterated by the seasons that came and went.

THIRTY-TWO

T
he men who ran the shanty grog shops of Australia’s frontiers were as tough as the men who frequented their bark and timber establishments, scattered along the bullock tracks that meandered through the endless miles of flat plains covered in scrub and eucalypt forests. The grog shanties provided more than grog. They were also an oasis of news and gossip for the stockmen and travellers at the end of a weary day. Burke’s Land had its share of the shanties.

The Gulf Country is an ancient land of flat savanna plains where the monsoonal wet season of northern Australia arrives in the southern tropics. A place where the parched plains of withered native grasses drown for weeks – even months – under the inland seas of muddy waters until the monsoons leave for another year.

But in the wake of the destructive rains comes creation. The withered grasses are reborn as life thrives on the abundance of flora and fauna rejuvenated by the life-giving water. And for a brief and bountiful period between the wet and the dry, the Gulf is a land of plenty. The end of the dry was imminent upon the land but the Gulf Country was still scorched and arid under a pitiless sun.

John Hogan stood under the shade of the hessian bags that served as a verandah roof to his one-roomed grog shanty. With his massive arms folded across his chest, he surveyed the two men who had taken up residence near his shop. A stockman, the Australian equivalent of the American cowboy, slept in the thick red dust of the country under a coolabah tree beside the shanty while his hobbled horse grazed on one of the few remaining patches of dry grasses.

The stockman had been riding to Burketown but had stopped off at Hogan’s grog shop for a preliminary drink. That had been two days earlier and Hogan had taken all the stockman’s money over the wood slab counter in exchange for two days of blissful retreat from the harsh and lonely world that was the stockman’s life.

The second man was a mystery.

Hogan could see the big man sitting by a fire he had built from white ant-riddled timbers. He was bearded and when he walked he did so with a noticeable limp. The big stranger drank very little when he came to the shanty and Hogan knew it was best not to ask too many questions. To all intents and purposes the man was probably a horse thief or one of the bushrangers wanted by the recently arrived Native Mounted Police force posted to Burketown.

Hogan scratched irritably at his crotch. Termites and crutch rot – one ate the timber away and the other ate away a man’s crotch. The bearded stranger looked up from his fire and saw the burly shanty owner watching him. He gave a friendly wave which Hogan acknowledged and then returned to the oven-like heat of his store. Another bloody hot day!

Sergeant Henry James poured tea into a battered enamel mug and sat with his back to a log. He sighed with contentment as the tea washed away the dryness in his mouth. One more day he would wait and then return to Burketown if the information proved to be false.

Henry stared idly at the sleeping stockman who had rolled over and made feeble efforts to brush away the cloud of flies around his head. He was not the one! He had watched the stockman carefully when he rode in to stop off at the grog shanty but the description did not fit.

Lieutenant Uhr had listened to Henry outline his plan and the young officer had given his hearty approval. If only Uhr had commanded the Rockhampton troop back in ’63 things might have turned out differently, Henry mused as he watched the stockman feebly scratch at his face. He would not now be sitting under a searing sun waiting for the man. Yes, Mort had changed a lot of people’s lives by his murderous actions so long ago.

As Henry sipped from the mug of hot tea, his thoughts were not on his tedious vigil but on his wife, Emma, and their young son, Gordon.

He had met Emma in ’64 while on leave from the Rockhampton troop, visiting Brisbane to see the bright lights. While there, he’d met the pretty young woman, who had recently arrived on a migrant ship from Liverpool with her brother.

She had immediately fallen in love with the big bear of a man twelve years her senior on a picnic outing on the banks of the Brisbane River. For all his size and strength she recognised in Henry the soul of a very gentle man. And she found in him the romance she had come in search of on the frontiers of Australia.

Henry courted her in his tender and passionate letters from Rockhampton and in the same year they were married by the Church of England minister when he returned to Brisbane on his next leave. Ten months later, Gordon James was born in Rockhampton.

It was only after they were married that he revealed to his wife the terrible things he had seen and done on the dispersals. The young woman had held him to her breast when he opened his soul to her and he’d talked haltingly of the horrors. She had held him to her with soothing words as if he were a little child and not a tough war-scarred veteran.

He had also told her of the injustice that had been brought upon the Duffy family by Mort and Donald Macintosh and he spoke of Kate O’Keefe’s unconditional forgiveness for his role in the dispersal that had taken the life of her father.

Emma had been impressed by the way Henry held Kate in such high regard and she took it on herself to visit her at the hotel where she worked behind the bar. Kate met Emma James one evening when she had finished at the hotel. What Kate saw was a petite young woman with red hair, blue eyes and freckles. Emma looked no older than fifteen or sixteen and Kate was surprised to find that they were both the same age.

Emma was pretty in her own way, but she felt awkward in the presence of the young woman with the long, raven hair and flashing eyes. No wonder the men all talked about Kate O’Keefe’s beauty in such glowing terms, she thought.

The two women warmed to each other almost immediately and from the evening of their first meeting they became firm friends.

Judith Cohen also warmed to the wife of the police sergeant and Solomon would often roll his eyes and complain that Judith spent all her time with Kate and Emma gossiping. He wondered at the strange bond that formed between women that brought them so close. Maybe it was because they felt no need to compete with each other as men did. Or maybe it was because they shared some female secret wrapped in a mystique of their primeval drive to bring children into the world. Whatever the bond, Solomon wisely decided no man could truly understand.

And it was with an empathetic joy that Kate and Judith welcomed the birth of Gordon James into the world. Then it was Judith’s turn to become a mother and a time for Kate and Emma to welcome the birth of Deborah Cohen. The regular morning tea meetings were filled with the cooing of contented mothers and ‘aunts’. And the bemused tots burbled with all the attention they received.

The horseman came from the edge of the sparse scrub.

He was a powerfully built man with a full beard and rode with a rifle across his saddle and a Colt in a leather holster at his hip. A smaller Colt pistol was tucked in the broad belt of his trousers and the bandolier of cartridges across his chest was full with rounds for his rifle, as the cartridge belt around his waist carried ammunition for the pistol. He also had a knife tucked in the side of his knee-length boot.

Henry remained sitting beside his fire. Adrenaline coursed through his body and his heart pounded. What was most noticeable to Henry was that the horseman was particularly alert as he approached the shanty.

He turned his grey eyes in Henry’s direction with a cautious and inquisitive appraisal and, with a courteous nod, each man acknowledged the other’s presence. Henry was aware that the man’s eyes were carefully scanning him for signs of any weapons. He found none. Then the grey eyes shifted to the sleeping stockman in the dust.

Yes, Henry thought. This has to be him.

His every movement was that of a man surveying the field like a military skirmisher picking targets on the battlefield. Henry was acutely aware that the rider’s hand was on his rifle and that the rifle over the man’s lap was pointed at him even though he seemed satisfied that Henry was not a threat.

Tom Duffy was not going to be easy to arrest. The very horse that Duffy rode was the final evidence Henry needed to identify the man. It was the well-known thoroughbred stolen from Pike Downs, south of Burketown, where Tom Duffy and the Aboriginal had been identified as the men who had bailed up the manager on the track a month earlier.

Tom rode slowly past him and the sleeping stockman, and Henry knew he could not make his move while Duffy was astride his horse. To do so gave the bushranger the advantage of flight.

Hogan heard the horseman approaching his shanty and strolled out to meet the man in the dusty yard. Henry noticed that the infamous bushranger dismounted with the horse between himself and the sleeping stockman.

‘Mister Hogan. Good to see your grog hasn’t killed you yet,’ Tom said in greeting to the proprietor.

‘Mister Docherty. Presume you’d be wantin’ a drink this day?’ Hogan answered casually as he turned his back and walked into the shanty. Tom hitched his horse to a makeshift rail.

‘I’d be having a drink outside, Mister Hogan,’ Tom called to the brawny shanty owner. ‘ ’Tis one of those days it is good to be alive and in the presence of God’s wondrous generosity of bush and sun.’

Duffy was extremely wary. Not even going inside where he would lose his ability to see what, or who, might approach from the bush. It was no wonder he had stayed always one step ahead of the law.

And Duffy also had the help of the Darambal blackfella. The tracking skills of the Native Mounted Police were thwarted by the two bushrangers’ intimate knowledge of the country. It was only the occasional visit to an isolated grog shanty that brought Duffy into contact with civilisation besides his occasional forays against the landowners for their money, horses and supplies. So far he had not killed any man or molested any woman. His forays in Burke’s Land and the death of three Macintosh shepherds in ’63 were yet to be proved against him.

Tom took a mug of whisky from Hogan, who knew the man was good for as much as he drank. He always paid more than the grog was worth and the big man’s generosity helped Hogan keep quiet about the occasional visits to his grog shop. Maybe Docherty was one of the cattle-duffers wanted by the traps. But he was also a reliable customer.

The two men threw down the whisky as if it was cold water. Tom liked to drink with Hogan, who became more talkative the more grog he consumed. Hogan would provide all the news of happenings around Burke’s Land – and even further afield.

The police revolver was hidden under Henry’s shirt and although Tom Duffy’s rifle was leaning against the hitching rail, he still carried two deadly revolvers. Henry noted that the bushranger drank with his left hand, which left his right hand free to draw the Colt from its holster slung on his hip.

The police sergeant fought to keep his breathing steady. He knew he had good reason to feel the fear. Although it was not proved, the wanted man was capable of killing. And where was the blackfella? Was he watching even now?

With some effort, Henry eased himself to his feet and tried to appear nonchalant as he walked towards the shanty owner and Tom standing in front of the bark hut. But he felt that his heartbeat might hammer him to the ground and his legs were weak as if they might suddenly fold under him at any moment.

‘Thought I might join you for a taste,’ Henry called as he closed the distance. ‘Bloody tea doesn’t get rid of the thirst.’

Thirty paces between them.

‘You got the money, I’ve got the grog,’ Hogan said with a laugh.

Twenty paces . . .

‘I’ve got ’bout enough for at least one long taste,’ Henry replied, trying to laugh.

Ten paces . . .

For a split second Tom’s eyes shifted across to the stockman, who had pushed himself onto his elbows. The mention of grog had reached the ears of the sleeping man across the dusty yard and had drawn him out of his befuddled alcohol-induced sleep.

‘You got a drink goin’, matey?’ the stockman called to the trio. ‘Count me in.’

It all happened in that shift of the eyes.

Henry clawed desperately at the pistol tucked under his shirt, but the hammer caught in the tough material and refused to let go. Tom swung his attention back to Henry and his right hand dropped over his holstered revolver. His gun was out and levelled at Henry’s head. Tom’s grey eyes blazed with cold fury. Henry froze with his hand still wrapped around the butt of his now useless pistol. All feelings were gone!

He braced himself for the fatal shot and was vaguely aware that Hogan had snatched up the rifle leaning against the hitching rail to point it uncertainly at him. It was obvious that Hogan was confused, as his eyes darted from the police sergeant and then to the bushranger.

‘I suppose it’s no good me telling you to stand in the Queen’s name,’ Henry said with a weak smile. It was all he could think of to say.

‘You’re a trap?’ Tom snarled with his arm outstretched and the pistol levelled at Henry’s head.

‘Sergeant James of the Burketown Native Mounted Police,’ he answered wearily and he saw the blaze in the bushranger’s eyes grow cold and deadly. He knew Tom Duffy had no love for the men who had been responsible for his father’s death.

‘A bloody trap,’ Tom growled. ‘I ought to blow your bloody brains out as we stand here now.’

Henry could see that despite the bushranger’s understandable hatred for the Native Mounted Police, he was wrestling with himself over his fate and a tiny flame of hope flickered. Henry made his desperate move.

‘I was hoping to take you alive, Tom Duffy,’ he said, as if confidently stating a fact. ‘But I’m afraid Mister Hogan standing just behind you knows about the thousand-pound reward for your arrest and will probably have to shoot you.’

Hogan’s eyes widened at the mention of the reward. The police sergeant’s gamble was a desperate one but he noticed the barrel shift towards Tom.

‘You Tom Duffy?’ Hogan asked with a noticeable tone of awe. He had suspected that his regular visitor might have been wanted by the law for maybe horse-stealing or cattle-duffing. But not the infamous bushranger Tom Duffy, who was wanted for robbery under arms.