Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (51 page)

FIFTY-ONE

K
ate heard the rattle of the wagon outside her house and she felt her panic rise as it came to a stop. It had to be Sergeant James bringing them to her, she thought, as she steadied herself. He had said in his telegram that he had expected to arrive with them today. Who else could it be?

With a brief glimpse in the mirror she patted her hair and took a deep breath. Then she went to the door with a rustle of her best satin dress and a confident demeanour. But when she opened the door, her confidence evaporated.

The three children stood on the wide verandah with frightened and confused expressions on their faces. They were dressed in ill-fitting and ragged European clothes that Henry had been able to scrounge in Burketown. They looked like trapped animals before the tall and solid frame of their captor, Sergeant Henry James.

‘Good afternoon to you, Missus O’Keefe,’ Henry said solemnly, dusting down his trousers with his hat. ‘I have them here safe and sound, as you can see. They weren’t much trouble. Still trying to come to grips with their situation, I suppose.’

‘Would you like to come in and have some tea?’ Kate offered as her eyes scanned the three little faces.

The sergeant nodded. ‘That would be nice,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long trip.’

‘I’m sure it has,’ Kate replied politely as he gently herded the three children through the door.

Kate poured the tea from a well-used and blackened kettle into fine china teacups set on the table and added a spoon of sugar to each. Henry accepted his cup with a mumbled thanks while the children gazed curiously around the kitchen, taking in its plain clean decor. Newly painted and unadorned wood plank walls were marked by sooty smoke stains from the small wrought-iron combustible stove.

Kate had moved into the house a few days earlier, after she had received the telegram from the police sergeant informing her that her brother was dead and that Tom had bequeathed his three children to her care.

The move to Townsville had been very much her way of leaving behind a place that held few happy memories for her. She would miss the many friends that she had left behind in Rockhampton, but Judith Cohen had quietly reassured her that she and Solomon would go about the transfer of her business interests while she started to make a home for Tom’s children. Kate had thanked her with tears and hugs.

Kate placed slabs of freshly buttered bread on a plate and offered it to the children, who accepted the meal with shy and apprehensive gratitude. They ate the bread smearing butter on their little faces. Kate noticed the eldest boy catch her eye with some defiance as she passed him the buttered bread. It was then that she felt a twinge of guilty regret for accepting the responsibility of rearing her brother’s offspring. Would she prove adequate for the daunting task ahead?

Henry sipped his tea in a rather delicate manner for such a big man.

‘They were no trouble on the trip over from Burketown,’ he said, by way of conversation. ‘Poor little buggers don’t know what they’re in for, I suppose.’

‘They will be suitably cared for, Sergeant James,’ Kate replied quickly as if the policeman had somehow read her guilty thoughts. ‘I expect they will need time to settle in.’

‘They’ve been roaming the bush with your brother and his gin,’ Henry said tactlessly and he realised the error of his thoughtless statement. ‘I’m sorry, Missus O’Keefe. I didn’t mean it that way.’

‘I understand,’ Kate replied. ‘And I agree that they have been living a wild and nomadic life. But I’m sure they will adapt to life with me.’

‘I’m sure,’ he echoed awkwardly and he sipped his tea while Kate sat down at the table to drink hers.

‘Was Tom given a decent funeral?’ she asked softly and Henry bowed his head.

‘We buried him as a Christian. I made sure of that. Least I could do for him. He was a good man, despite him being a bushranger,’ he said with faltering words. He still had trouble finding means to express his mixed feelings for the man he had hunted over the years.

‘And what of the mother of these children?’ she asked, glancing at them. ‘Did she get a decent funeral?’

A pained expression clouded the sergeant’s bearded face. ‘She weren’t a Christian,’ he replied with an edge of embarrassment in his voice. ‘We left her in the hills where she died. Figure that was the blackfella way. The way she would have wanted.’

‘You could be right,’ Kate reflected. ‘She was a woman of the plains and bush and it is probably fitting that her soul remain with the land that was her home.’ She paused and stared at an empty place beyond the sergeant. ‘It’s just that . . . I think my brother would have liked the mother of his children to be with him in the eternal sleep.’

Henry did not have an answer. He was a man who had seen much death in his lifetime, from the bloody battlefields of the Crimean to the terrible dispersals of the colony. Death was death! It was time to make his departure and return to his wife and son waiting for him at Burketown.

‘If you are right with the kids, then I will be best getting back to the missus,’ he said awkwardly. ‘She sends her regards and says that if you need any help, you only have to ask.’

‘Please thank Emma for her offer,’ Kate answered with a warm smile. ‘You can tell her that I will visit as soon as I have the children settled in. Or she should visit me whenever she has the time.’

Kate saw him to the door and waved goodbye as he hauled himself up onto the seat of the wagon. The draught-horse snorted and pulled the wagon away with a bump and a rattle down the dusty road.

She returned to the kitchen where the children stood looking at her with dark eyes. The boys watched her with suspicion while young Sarah followed her with the growing curiosity peculiar to toddlers. Kate stared back at them with tears welling in her eyes. This was all that was left of her brother – three mixed-race children. Three children caught between two worlds, she thought with growing despair. But her despair turned to hope when little Sarah toddled towards her with her chubby arms held out.

It was then that Kate knew that she would overcome all that life could cruelly thrust upon her.

FIFTY-TWO

N
o one was quite sure where the stories had started.

But the old shepherds told them to the young stockmen. And they told the stories so convincingly that the younger stockmen did not scoff at their conviction in the telling. It was said that the land around the ancient volcanic outcrop on Glen View was a cursed area. A
baal
place! A place where eerie balls of fire had been seen rolling aimlessly along the plains on hot and prickly nights. A place the Aboriginal station hands avoided with the inherent knowledge that the hills were a sacred site to be respected by the living.

Sir Donald dismissed the stories as superstitious nonsense. He lived alone in his newly built homestead. It was a grand place of mudbrick and wide cool verandahs. It had many rooms and should have been the home where Angus brought his bride. A woman who would have borne the sons for the Macintosh name to continue. But it was an empty place, where Donald sat alone on the verandahs in the evenings, gazing bleakly out across the stockyards and stockmen’s quarters. And from the verandah he was able to view the grave of Angus nestled under the shadows of a big old gum tree.

Six years had passed since his son’s death at the hands of the Darambal warrior. Sir Donald rode on an annual pilgrimage to the place where his son had been slain.

In the dusty depths of the brigalow scrub, not far from the old camp site of the Nerambura clan who once lived on the creek, Sir Donald was able to remember a living son. Here he was truly able to mourn as he sat astride his horse and talked to Angus as if he were a living entity in the scrub. He talked to him of the past season. He talked about the land and how he would forge Glen View into a place Angus would have been proud of . . . had he lived. And when his words no longer came, he cried bitter tears for all that had been lost to him at the end of a Darambal spear.

At sundown, Sir Donald spurred his mount forward to ride to the water holes where the few remaining bones of the Nerambura people could still be seen scattered in the dust and dry grass.

He dismounted and knelt to scoop water with his cupped hands from the gently flowing stream. Soon the continuing dry season would slow the water to a sluggish and eventually stagnant halt. He sighed when he had finished drinking, and waited patiently until his mount had finished taking her fill. As he stood there, he idly scanned the surrounding bush hushed with the first approach of evening. It was a peaceful time when the land lost its harshness to take on an exhausted serenity cloaked in the soft pastel colours of the setting sun.

He turned his attention to the west where the long shadows of the small range of hills spread slowly across the dry scrub and dusty plains, and he shaded his eyes as he gazed up at the summit of the sacred hill.

With a sudden and explosive fear, he realised he was not alone!

Against the setting sun was a distinctly ominous silhouette. A tall and naked warrior stood watching him. Sir Donald did not have to see the man’s face. He instinctively knew who he was.

‘You!’ he hissed as he rose slowly from the ground, reaching for the pistol in his belt. There was a blur of movement in the orange glow of the setting sun and the squatter felt his body plucked backwards as the long wooden spear buried itself deep in his chest.

Wallarie squatted impassively in the dust watching the white man die. The flight of the spear had been true. The man who had ordered the dispersal of Wallarie’s people lay on his back, clutching the spear as he glared with hate-filled and despairing eyes up at his executioner. Sir Donald Macintosh died with a final strangled cry of Gaelic words that Wallarie did not understand.

When the man was dead, Wallarie rose and walked towards the sacred hill.

One day he would come
.

Wallarie did not know when. All he knew was that the warrior of the cave was real. Even now Wallarie was being called from beyond the grave to hunt and kill the devil with the pale blue eyes and black heart.

Although he did not know when the warrior’s spirit would rise from the grave, he did know the white men of Glen View would eventually find the squatter’s body and they would recognise the Nerambura spear.

It was important that the white men knew it was the spear of the last surviving warrior of the Nerambura clan. The last of his tribe.

EPILOGUE

A
cross the great river dividing Mexico from the United States of America lay El Paso and Fort Bliss. And from Fort Bliss to El Paso’s sister town of El Paso del Norte rode Major Alfred A. Lees of the United States Army in company with a man known by all as Maori Jack.

They crossed the broad and sluggishly flowing river under a blazing sun, wearing the clothes of western drifters. Their mission into Mexican territory was of a sensitive nature and the sight of military uniforms was not conducive to their meeting with the man Maori Jack had identified weeks earlier while carousing in a Mexican brothel.

The two men came armed, although their big Colt revolvers were concealed from view. This was a place where a gringo could end up with his throat cut for the price of his boots. But despite their disguise as drifters, both men exuded an air of two men whose boots were best left on their feet. Major Lees had the hard look of a man acquainted with war and the solidly built man who rode beside him had the scarred look of a man used to violence.

In the Mexican town, they reined their horses at a cantina and hitched them before warily stepping inside the drinking establishment. For a moment, the cool gloom of the place caused them to hesitate as they searched the corners for the man Maori Jack had assured the major would be there. Maori Jack nodded his head and steered the major towards a trestle-like wooden table in one corner where a tall and broad-shouldered young man sat facing the door watching them with his one good eye. Over the other eye, a black leather patch indicated the extent of his disability.

‘I brought the major,’ Maori Jack said as he stood at the edge of the table, looking down on the young man whose single grey eye appraised the two visitors with calculated interest. ‘He’s gonna talk to you ’bout sumthin’ that’s no business of mine.’

‘Thanks, Jack,’ the young man said without rising. ‘Get yourself a drink at the bar while the major and I talk.’ He produced a silver dollar and slid it across the rough plank table to Maori Jack, who grinned as he picked it up.

‘Reckon I will,’ Maori Jack replied and he turned to walk to the bar where a big man of Spanish–Indian blood stood watching the two strangers from behind dark eyes. The place was empty with the exception of the three gringos, and the barman was grateful for the patronage.

‘I believe your name is Michael Duffy,’ the major said as he sat himself down at the table. ‘And that you are looking for employment.’

Michael nodded and pushed a glass and a bottle of clear and fiery liquid towards the major, whom he guessed to be in his mid-thirties. From the way the major spoke, it was obvious to Michael that the man was probably a West Pointer.

‘That’s right, Major,’ Michael said, filling his own glass. ‘Kind of got myself unemployed after Señor Pablo Juarez was elected president of Mexico.’

The major filled his glass and took a delicate sip of the fiery local brew.

‘You have an interesting history, Mister Duffy,’ the major said as his eyes watered from the effects of the drink. ‘Not only did you fight for the Union forces in the war, but you also fought under Count Ferdinand von Tempsky in the Maori Wars in New Zealand. And lately with Juarez’s forces against the French in Mexico . . . a man with considerable military experience considering your age. How old are you? Twenty-five, thirty?’

‘Twenty-seven,’ Michael replied bluntly. ‘That got anything to do with the possibility of me working for you?’

‘Not particularly,’ Lees replied with just the hint of a smile. ‘Just that you are pretty goddamned resourceful for a man of your limited years. Maori Jack told me about your supposed death in New Zealand before you came over here to join up and fight. Got the Congressional Medal of Honour as a captain, didn’t you,’ he said rather than asked.

Michael scowled. ‘Cost me my bloody eye,’ he said quietly. ‘Rather have the eye than the medal. The change to my face didn’t help much in hiding me from my past.’

‘Maori Jack told me how you and he fought together in New Zealand,’ Lees said. ‘It may be your good luck that he recognised you after all those years, as you seem to have the qualities I am looking for . . . for the work I do.’

‘What work would that be, Major?’ Michael asked with a glint of challenge in his good eye. ‘Spying?’

The major frowned and leant forward on the table towards Michael.

‘It’s called intelligence,’ he said softly. ‘And it wins wars where stupid commanders would necessarily lose them if they weren’t told what their counterparts were thinking. Like knowing that you are wanted for murder back in your home town of Sydney in New South Wales. I believe they hang men for murder in Australia, like we do here.’ He was pleased to see that his intimate knowledge of Michael Duffy’s history had wiped any expression of haughtiness from the Irishman’s face.

The knowledge had come easily, as Maori Jack was familiar with the events surrounding the young man’s reasons for faking his death after his true identity had been exposed in the ’63 Waikato campaign. Maori Jack and Michael had served together under the legendary Prussian adventurer Count von Tempsky, in one of his guerilla units fighting the Maoris. And it had been Maori Jack who had aided Michael in his escape from the law in New Zealand, only to meet again by chance, thousands of miles away in a Mexican brothel.

‘I need work,’ Michael said, chastened by the major’s coolness. ‘And it seems that the only work I know now is what I’ve done since New Zealand. If you have that kind of work, then I am your man without question.’

‘I think you are, Mister Duffy,’ Lees replied. ‘And you have a job, as soon as I get permission from my superiors in Washington to hire you. So you can come home to the States and leave this Mexican shit behind.’

‘Home for me, Major, is a long way from the States,’ Michael replied quietly. ‘Home for me is a place on the other side of the world across the Pacific.’

‘Yeah, I forgot,’ the major said, bravely taking a gulp of the drink from his glass. ‘You’re a Paddy.’

Michael stared briefly into the eyes of the American sitting across the table from him and replied, ‘I was once an Australian. But now I’m a man who fights for anyone who can afford me.’

‘Maybe you’ll get home one day,’ the major said as he rose from the table and caught Maori Jack’s eye. ‘Meet me at Fort Bliss headquarters next week and I’ll confirm you are with us for a job down in South America. Maori Jack tells me you speak passable Spanish.’

Michael watched the two men depart the cantina and walk into the sun-baked dusty street outside. He sat and stared at the rectangle of brilliant light marking the place of their exit and he wondered on a place he had not thought about for many years. Just staying alive had kept his thoughts on the places he had been, rather than where he had come from. His life had changed so dramatically in a mere six years. All he had known, since that fateful night in a Sydney backstreet, had been war. But now the American major’s words echoed in his mind. ‘Maybe you’ll get home one day.’

If he ever did then he knew he must return as another man. But that would not be hard. War had made him another man and the skills, which were once gentle and creative, had been blasted out of him on the battlefields. He was no longer the aspiring painter. Now he was a soldier of fortune. Maybe he would return home one day, he thought. If he did there would be many scores to settle.