Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (35 page)

‘Yair, I’m Tom Duffy,’ Tom replied as he continued to level his pistol at Henry.

‘And yer worth a thousand quid?’ Hogan said ominously. The Irish bushranger was aware of the strange note in Hogan’s voice and his survival instincts told him the Snider was pointed squarely at his back. Now it was his turn to attempt to get on top of the situation that had shifted in favour of the police sergeant.

‘The Snider’s not loaded, Mister Hogan,’ Tom said without bothering to turn. But Hogan had made up his mind where his loyalties lay. A thousand pounds!

‘Then if’n I pull the trigger nothin’ will happen,’ he countered casually.

Tom shook his head and lowered his pistol. As he lowered the gun, Henry unravelled the hammer of his revolver from under his shirt and levelled it at Tom, who dropped his gun to the ground.

‘And all the others, Mister Duffy,’ Henry ordered.

Tom removed the smaller pistol from his belt and placed it in the dust of the shanty yard. ‘It was worth a try,’ he said with a cheeky grin and a shrug of his massive shoulders. ‘I tell you, Hogan, this will be the last time I drink at your establishment if you let traps drink here. You’ve got no class.’

For the first time in his life, Tom Duffy was manacled.

THIRTY-THREE

W
allarie had a bad feeling. He had watched his white brother ride towards the grog shanty with that easy indifference he had so often contemptuously displayed for danger. Mebbe he would be all right, he thought. There had been no sign of the Mounted Police mounts in the area for a long time. His horse snorted and shifted under him as if sensing his unease. It was a baal feeling.

Wallarie reined his horse away and melted into the sparse shadows of the bush to keep the track from Burketown under surveillance. The afternoon passed and the shadows lengthened and still Tom had not come back to their appointed place of meeting. Something was very wrong.

Within minutes, the former Darambal warrior picked up the tracks of two horses and immediately recognised one set as that of a Mounted Police and the other as the familiar tracks of Tom’s horse. Whoever was leading Tom’s horse had skirted the track to ride across unbroken ground and he knew what he was doing. He was deliberately attempting to throw a tracker off the trail. That could only mean that the trap knew that Wallarie would be following them.

Wallarie smiled savagely. No white man could ever use the bush to cover his trail. It was not whether he would find them but merely a matter of whether he would use his rifle or revolver to kill the trap when he caught up with him. And he knew with the certainty of his considerable skills that he would be ready to make his move just after sunset. He would come like a spirit in the night to take the trap’s life and free his white brother.

With a jerk on the reins he forced his mount into a canter. The tracks were easy to follow.

Tom had a grudging respect for the sergeant’s bush skills. The policeman’s attention was never distracted from his constant scanning of the mottled shadows of the country they rode through, and he noticed that Henry avoided any rocky outcrops as they traversed the land between Hogan’s grog shop and Burketown, avoiding the better-marked track to the Gulf town.

He could see that the big Englishman was well at home navigating across the monotonous terrain of grass and woodland. With the tactical astuteness of a military scout, the big bearded sergeant always ensured he had a panoramic view in all directions as they rode north. Wallarie would have some problems keeping the sergeant close to him in the present country during daylight. But Tom knew that with the coming of the night, Wallarie was bound to make his move to rescue him.

Henry rode, never speaking a word, except to give his manacled prisoner orders. The manacles chafed Tom’s wrists but he was at least grateful that he was riding and not walking as the sergeant could have made him do all the way back to Burketown.

What puzzled Tom was why the sergeant had not sprung the trap on him with more police. Either the sergeant was the best in the north or he was downright stupid. Sergeant James must have known he would not be alone and that Wallarie was bound to be with him or at least close by. But it was obvious from the way the sergeant traversed the country his first proposition could have some basis – Henry James was bloody good at his job. Tom was beginning to regret that he had not killed the policeman when he had the chance.

He pondered on what had stopped him from pulling the trigger of his Colt. Was it the lack of fear he saw in the sergeant’s demeanour when he had levelled the gun on him? Tom respected courage. Was it that he was not naturally a killer? The shooting of the Glen View shepherds had not been acts of murder. They were acts of summary justice for the shepherds’ torture and murder of his friends. Execution was the technical name, he thought. Yes, he was an executioner. But not a murderer. So it had been that he had hesitated in killing a man just doing his job.

On sundown, Henry selected a clearing with a gentle rising section of grassland to camp for the night and Tom noticed that the ground had an uninterrupted view in all directions of the surrounding plain, dotted with low and spindly trees. He was left manacled to a tree which grew near the centre of the rise while Henry limped out from the camp site.

Tom watched with interest as the sergeant paced out distances and then stopped to mark the trunks of nearby trees with a scraps of white rag he carried.

‘I see you’ve been a military man in your time, Sergeant,’ Tom called to him as he recognised that the policeman was setting rifle ranges for the Snider carbine.

‘Crimea in ’54,’ Henry grunted when he returned and he cleared a space around the sticks he had gathered for a small fire.

‘Then at least you weren’t one of those murdering redcoats at the Eureka if you were fighting the Rooskies in ’54,’ Tom said as he gazed out at the shimmering haze of the plain and rubbed his wrists, chafed by the police manacles. He did not complain, as he knew with certainty that he would not for long be a prisoner of Her Majesty and the English sergeant who escorted him to Burketown. Wallarie was out there.

Although Tom had left Wallarie in the scrub to keep a sharp lookout for anyone approaching the shanty, he had not expected to be taken at the shanty itself in a cleverly set ambush. He had made the fatal error of underestimating the cunning of the traps, or at least the deviousness of Sergeant James. He vowed to himself that it would not happen again as he watched the sergeant go about, cautiously preparing the camp for the night. It was obvious that he also expected Wallarie to attempt a rescue when the sun set over the plains.

Henry knew it was no use concealing the camp site if the Aboriginal bushranger was tracking them. Better that he prepare his defences for an attack. Now he wished that he had brought the troop with him from Burketown, as he had foolishly overestimated his ability to take both bushrangers single-handedly. But he had his reasons for choosing to attempt the arrest of Tom and Wallarie alone.

Neither policeman nor bushranger mentioned Wallarie. Some things did not have to be said, as they both knew he was out there and what his intentions were.

The sun sank as a cooling red ball over the tops of the parched and stunted scrub. The hot air cooled noticeably and the flames of the fire took on the beauty of dancing wraiths.

The night was promising to be clear and crisp and the full moon would soon rise to cover the plains with its soft glow. A time when every shadow would take on a sinister shape for Henry.

Very few words had passed between the two men as they rode across the land to the gentle rise but Henry had treated his prisoner with a strange courteousness Tom could not fathom. He had even offered Tom a plug of his precious tobacco. Precious because it was a luxury that was not always available on the frontier.

Tom gratefully accepted the plug of tobacco Henry passed him and tamped it down in his battered pipe with his thumb. He bent and took a thin burning stick from the fire to light his pipe, sucked until the tobacco glowed and then he relaxed and puffed contentedly on the pipe.

Grey smoke curled lazily from the pipe’s bowl in the still air of the sunset. Under other circumstances, Tom thought, the evening might have been pleasant.

‘I’m just a bit puzzled why you didn’t come better prepared than you are, Sergeant James,’ Tom said as he puffed at the clay pipe. ‘Thought Wallarie and me warranted at least a troop from Burketown.’

Henry poked at the fire, which sparked in a shower of red cinders. ‘I didn’t want you to get killed,’ he replied quietly. ‘Any more of us might have got you shot up.’

‘Nice that you should say that, Sergeant,’ Tom said with just a touch of gratitude for Henry’s considerate view of the situation. ‘But it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Me and Wallarie being the scourge of Queensland and all that. It’s not that you know me exactly.’

‘I know more about you than you think,’ Henry said with an enigmatic smile. ‘Your sister Kate has told me a lot about you.’

The bushranger ceased puffing on his pipe.

‘Kate! How do you know Kate?’ he asked quietly as Henry began to prepare himself for the night. He slipped the loaded revolvers inside his belt and was now armed with three pistols as well as the Snider.

‘I met Kate a time ago,’ he said and stared into the flickering flames. ‘Your sister is a fine woman you can be very proud of.’

Tom stared curiously at the police sergeant. It was a strange world where Kate might be friends with a trap, let alone an Englishman.

‘I was on the dispersal when your father was murdered,’ Henry continued softly as he scanned the plain, now under a soft light as the sun sank below the flat horizon.

‘
Murdered!
You knew he was murdered?’ Tom hissed across the space between them. ‘You know about that murdering bastard Mort then?’

Henry nodded. ‘I couldn’t prove anything but I got him to resign from the Mounted Police at Rockhampton. I came very close to killing Mort myself. He not only murdered your father but he also murdered a good friend of mine.’

‘Then why didn’t you kill him if you had the chance?’ Tom asked with an edge of bitterness, as Henry stared reflectively at the fire.

‘Because I’m still here and free. And you are the one in chains,’ he replied philosophically. ‘You made your decision. I made mine.’ Henry fell into a silence as he kept a careful eye on the horizon where he expected the moon to rise.

Tom understood what Henry was saying. If only the Macintosh shepherds had not killed the last of the survivors of the Nerambura clan and raped Mondo, things might have turned out differently for him and Wallarie. They might not have taken to bushranging. But that was past and the reality was the present. He was the one in chains and only one day’s ride from a police lockup.

‘How is Kate?’ Tom asked, breaking the silence that followed Henry’s revelation as to why he had not killed Mort.

‘Kate is fine and well,’ he answered. ‘She lives in Rockhampton and happens to be good friends with my wife, Emma. Kate is like an aunt to my son, Gordon.’

‘I heard she was working in a pub in Rockhampton,’ Tom said, puffing on his pipe. ‘You get the news out here along the track.’ He leant back to look up at the first stars appearing in the sky. ‘They say she is the most beautiful woman north of the border. Ah, but it would be good to see her again some day . . . little Katie.’

Henry listened to the bushranger talk about his sister as if he was talking to a friend. But as he listened to the bushranger’s banter, he was fully alert to all the noises around them.

A quoll, the marsupial native cat of Australia, gave off a sharp screech as it encountered another male quoll. The ferocious animals, only a little larger than the common rat, fought over a female and the screeching of combat between them caused Henry to start nervously. But he soon settled down when he recognised the sound for what it was.

Tom noticed that the sergeant was tense and he knew he had good reason to be. If Wallarie came it would be with his natural stealth and a sharp knife. The quolls settled their dispute and moved away. One a winner, the other a loser.

‘You much of a cook?’ Henry asked Tom.

‘Fair enough.’

‘Then we get to find out. You get to make the tucker. I’ve got some rice, couple of tins of sardines, and a bit of curry powder. Also got flour and jam. See what you can do with that,’ Henry said as he dropped the saddlebags at Tom’s feet.

Tom grinned up at Henry. ‘I might just poison you, Sergeant James.’

Henry wanted to eat before it got too dark as he did not want to be preoccupied with anything other than watching for the Aboriginal bushranger when night fell.

After an imaginative if not appetising supper of curried sardines and rice, Henry strolled across to the horses. He had not only marked out rifle ranges with the cloth spotters but he had also carefully made a survey on lines of sight across the tussock and scrub plain. He had left the horses in dead ground, an area of hollowed earth, which obscured an observer’s view of their location.

He saddled the horses and was careful to keep Tom in view at all times even though the ankle chains were guaranteed to keep him from running very far should he attempt to flee.

Tom watched with interest as Henry went about his tasks in the hollow. Whatever he was doing was a waste of time. Tom fully expected to gain his freedom in the next few hours.

The moon was a big yellow ball on the horizon and its soft glow brought to life the stark shadows of the bush and tussock. If Wallarie was working to the plan that Henry thought he would have formulated for Tom Duffy’s release, then the warrior would even now be stalking them. When the horses were saddled, Henry led them up the rise to Tom, manacled by the fire.

‘I want you to listen very carefully, Duffy, to what I am going to tell you,’ he said. ‘But first, be assured I will kill you if you should so much as vary one inch from what I tell you to do. Are we clear on that?’ Tom could see in the sergeant’s eyes he meant exactly what he said and he nodded his head. ‘I do not want to have to kill you,’ Henry continued as he stared into Tom’s eyes to keep his meaning clear. ‘But if it comes down to you or me I promise you that it will be me who comes out of this alive. I know that blackfella companion of yours is probably out there watching us right now and I have no doubts he would kill me as fast as you can say Jack Robinson. So do as I say and we will both live.’ Tom nodded again. He had underestimated the English sergeant twice now.

Henry released Tom’s ankle chains which fell away and he rubbed his ankles where they had chafed him.

‘Get on your horse. You ride in front of me and we ride north,’ Henry said as he made a final scan of the surrounding moonlit plain. ‘I figure your myall mate isn’t going to be very happy when he sees us ride out of here,’ he said with a quick and savage smile. And Henry was right.

Wallarie watched helplessly as the two men rode at a gallop away from what he had presumed incorrectly was to be an overnight camp for the sergeant and his prisoner. Had not the policeman marked the trees with the white rag as Tom had told him some men did to mark ranges for rifle fire accuracy? Wallarie used one of Tom’s favourite curses. The bloody whitefella had tricked him.

Wallarie rose up out of the grass tussocks and flung his rifle to the shoulder. The bang of the rifle shot rolled across the plain and Henry instinctively ducked his head at the sound. It was a futile gesture, as he knew the sound followed the bullet and if the Aboriginal bushranger’s aim had been true, then he would have felt the impact of the bullet first.