Flight of the Eagle (12 page)

‘Daddy?’ she called when she saw her father striding towards her. ‘I have made breakfast for you.’

Ah, but she was so much like her mother, he thought with a surge of paternal love. While she lived Jenny would always be with him.

‘I spoke to your mother last night,’ Ben said as he sat at the table with the pannikin of bread and dripping in front of him. ‘I think she would have agreed that Willie take you all to Townsville to stay with your Aunt Judith and Uncle Solomon. Then Willie can return to the property,’ he added.

The younger boys cast each other shocked expressions. It was inconceivable to even consider leaving their home at such a time. They were needed here and not in a town where freedom was restricted to streets and houses! But they wisely made no sign to protest other than in the frowns clouding their faces. Becky stood at her father's shoulder. Her bottom lip quivered.
She was losing her father too!

Ben saw the tears welling in her eyes. He drew her to him and placed her in his lap. His arms wrapped around her and he could smell the earthy sweetness of her thick tresses. His heart ached for the decision he had reluctantly made to send away his children. But more was at stake than Jerusalem alone. ‘It won't be forever,’ he said gently. ‘Just for a couple of years until things change here.’

‘What things?’ Saul piped up in a confused voice. ‘What things change. Mum's dead and we're old enough to know that, Dad. You need Jonathan and me to help you run the place. Send Becky … but not us!’

‘I said for a couple of years,’ Ben growled at his son who had always been the more daring of his two boys. ‘A couple of years for you all to get a decent education and make up your own minds as to what you want to do. Stay in Townsville or come back here to help me and Willie run the place.’

‘But we don't need to go to school to know how to run the place,’ Saul continued, undaunted. ‘Me and Jonathan do our work around here already as good as Willie. You don't need schooling to handle the cattle. You can teach us all we have to know.’

‘You do need an education,’ Ben snapped. ‘It's something your mother always wanted for you. She always wanted you to learn how to read and write and I have to honour her wishes.’

Honour her wishes, Willie brooded. Honour her wish to exact vengeance on the man who had caused her life so much pain as a child. He leant forward, his elbows on the table top. ‘Shut up, Saul, and listen to what your father says.’

Saul's face flushed with anger as he swung on him.

‘He's not
your
father,’ Saul flared. ‘I heard what Mum said to you before she died. So you can go to hell.’

Ben's face drained of blood at his son's retort and the crack of his backhand caused Saul to topple from the bench at the table. ‘Never say that again in this house,’ Ben whispered hoarsely, as the white hot anger choked him.

Shocked by the speed and savageness of the strike from his father, Saul lay sprawled on the hard-packed earthen floor holding his hand to the swelling redness of his cheek. ‘A man don't need to be natural born to be a son.’

In those words, Willie suddenly felt a surge of love for the man who had been his mother's husband. Until that moment he had never truly accepted Ben as his father as he had always been a competitor for his mother's attentions.

‘Never again, Saul,’ Ben hissed to emphasise the seriousness of the warning. ‘It would have hurt your mother more than you will ever know to hear you say what you did just then.’

‘Sorry,’ Saul mumbled as he returned to his place at the table. He could taste blood in his mouth where a tooth had cut the inside of his cheek and was partially satisfied to see that his father was trembling with regret for the pain that he had inflicted on him in his explosive fury.

He is a tough one, Ben thought. The sort of boy who would grow to be the natural inheritor of Jerusalem some day. But in this thought alone he felt guilt for the dismissal of Willie who should, by his position in the family, be the son chosen to inherit the property.
Blood was thicker than water
crept uncomfortably into his mind.

‘When do yer want me to leave with the kids?’ Willie asked quietly, and Ben was grateful for the question.

‘Tomorrow. You pack all you need to take the track from Cloncurry to Townsville. I'll give you a letter explaining everything to Solomon and you can pick up supplies in town on your way to see them. Make sure you take a good supply of shot and powder with you.’

‘We take the dray?’ Willie asked and Ben nodded.

Jonathan had remained silent throughout the altercation between his father and his defiant brother and had even given Saul a reproving look when he'd sat back down at the table after having been sent sprawling. Although he was as reluctant to leave his father and the property as his brother, Jonathan also felt a guilty twinge of relief.

He still had vague memories of his first years of life in Townsville where there were so many wonders and delights denied to them on Jerusalem. So many other children to play with instead of the gruelling work of the property. And books he would learn to read. No, life for a couple of years in Townsville would not be so bad. Besides, the Cohens had a lot of money and didn't have to work as hard as their father.

The next morning Willie harnessed the best of the horses to the dray and packed the supplies they would need for the long trek to Townsville: flour, tinned beef, sugar, tea, bags of water, a rifle and ammunition, canvas sheet for shelter and a bag of chaff for the horse. They took little else as there was little else to take.

Both boys sat in the dray with Becky beside Willie, hugging her sole toy, a doll Jenny had made for her from scraps of dresses. Her golden locks were greasy and tangled with neglect as her hair care had been a loving chore Jenny performed.

Willie cracked a stockwhip and the dray rumbled across the yard and past the newly built stockyards. The heavy, iron-rimmed wheels raised a low cloud of fine, red dust that trailed like a plume.

Shading his eyes with his broad-rimmed hat, Ben stood by the stockyards and sadly watched the dray disappear into the scrub. He could see the boys gazing back at him with grim set faces and he watched as Becky turned to wave the hand holding the doll. It was at that moment he felt that his heart might physically break and he choked back the tears he thought he no longer had in him.

When they were out of sight he turned to walk to the grave of his wife. He stood with his head bowed and spoke to her, explaining that they would return one day as the people she had always wanted them to become. The silence of the vast bushland echoed in his ears as he strained to hear the rumble of the dray or the crack of the whip. But he heard nothing except the twitter of the tiny bush birds flitting in and out of the brush in search of insects. For the first time in many years he was truly alone.

No, not alone! Jenny would always be with him in the laughter that might some day return in the form of his daughter as a young woman.

Ben stood by Jenny's grave for an hour, unaware of the many dark eyes that watched him from the concealment of the scrub. Eyes of warriors who, as they crouched in the shadows of the bush with spears fitted to woomeras, had also watched the passing of the dray.

But the spears did not fly to pierce the flesh of the white people. For Terituba recognised the man who had walked fearlessly amongst them and brought them flour instead of death. Terituba signalled to his party of warriors to move on and leave the white man to grieve in peace. For he respected this man and his death would serve no purpose. There were other white men to hunt until they were either killed or left the land of the Kalkadoon.

Silent as moving shadows, the Kalkadoon war party slipped deeper into the scrub to hunt and return to their clan camped at a waterhole north of Jerusalem. Soon they would join the other Kalkadoon clans in the basalt hills to plan strategies to drive the invaders out.

Willie had not turned to look back at the bark hut. He had not looked back at the place where his mother was buried because he wanted to remember her as a living being and not as part of the earth. He knew he would never again return to Jerusalem. He could never be part of the land owned by Ben as he had always known that the land would go to either Jonathan or Saul. He would deliver Ben's children to Townsville and seek a way of life that would eventually take him south to the place of his birth – Sydney. And when he finally got there he would honour the oath he had made to himself after his mother's death. He would kill his real father.

TEN

G
ordon James's dark eyes and jet black hair were the features that first struck the observer and, although he was not exceptionally tall, his commanding demeanour made him appear so. His clean shaven face was tanned a golden hue as a legacy of the long hours he had spent in the saddle leading patrols of Native Mounted Police on forays against the last remnants of Aboriginal tribes who deigned to resist the white squatters.

Dressed in his uniform jacket and with his riding trousers tucked into knee-length boots he was an impressive sight as he stood before his audience with his back to the plank trestle bar of the Cloncurry hotel and eyed his audience: squatters and their stockmen, teamsters, selectors, prospectors and a few of the merchants who worked closely with the bushmen. Tough and uncompromising men dressed in the rough working clothes of their trades: moleskin trousers, bright shirts, wide-brimmed hats and knee-length boots. They carried guns on their hips and cradled rifles in their laps. The mostly bearded men stared back at the young police officer with just a hint of contempt and hostility while outside the hotel dogs snarled and snapped at each other, disputing territory.

The squabbling dogs were watched by a gaggle of bearded men who lounged under the shelter of the verandah of the hotel. These patrons of the hotel had decided the meeting inside was of little interest to them and amused themselves with snide comments on the lack of ability of the Native Mounted Police to disperse the pesky Kalkadoon in the district. Their comments were intended for the ears of the two uniformed police troopers who also lounged at one end of the verandah, waiting for their commander to finish his meeting inside.

Other than the ruckus created by the mangy dogs there was little movement along the wide and dusty main street of the frontier town. The hot midday sun had driven most living creatures under shade. Only a lone dray rumbled down the street and its occupants did cause some curious onlookers to stare at them as they passed, heading for the general merchandise store. Two young boys, a young girl with yellow hair, and a surly looking young man at the reins.

Inside the bar the men packed together, some sitting, some standing, muttering amongst themselves and continuing to stare at the officer who made a loud cough and tapped the bar with the base of an empty gin bottle. The improvised gavel gained their attention and he introduced himself by rank and surname and thanked the men for answering his call to the meeting. Then he launched directly into his introductory speech. ‘I know the treacherous murder of Inspector Potter has filled you with all the abhorrence that such an act will elicit in good men,’ Gordon James piously intoned to his audience. ‘But I promise you I will take all steps necessary to bring to heel the darkies responsible for the crime.’

The audience were men who had heard it all before from the far-off government in the distant capital of Brisbane Town.
Another shiny arsed trap who had all the answers to the almost daily increase in Kalkadoon warfare in the Cloncurry district!

‘You and whose army?’ a squatter sneered as he sat with his arms folded over his ample paunch. ‘The black bastards will lead you down the garden path before they rip yer guts out and eat yer kidneys.’

His observation was backed with head nodding and low growls of agreement from the audience, cynical that such a young man could be a better policeman than the older, experienced policeman who had been led into an ambush and killed.

‘Give the man a fair go, Harry,’ someone drawled from the back of the bar in a broad American accent. ‘His old man was Henry James.’

‘Never heard of ′im,’ the podgy squatter snorted.

‘You wouldn't, Harry,’ the American added facetiously. ‘He was a local man.’

The reference to the former Victorian farmer's newness to the district put him in his place and brought a snicker of laughter from the old timers of the frontier who were tired of the irksome squatter's continuous bragging of how better the Colony of Victoria was to that of Queensland.

‘Yeah. You tell him, Commanche Jack!’ another voice called from the men packed into the bar.

Gordon was grateful for the American's support. It was interesting to hear that his father was still a man whose formidable reputation existed in the memories of the tough men of the frontier. ‘Mister Jack, I gather your name indicates you have some experience fighting the savages of your land?’ the young police officer queried.

Commanche Jack pushed his way forward through the throng of frontiersmen. ‘Nigh on twenty years, Inspector,’ he replied. ‘They even prettied up my face one time so the wimmen would like me more.’

He was a short stocky man who Gordon judged to be in his middle years but who carried himself like a man twenty years younger. Gordon was impressed by his scarred face. Here was a man who knew his business when it came to dealing with savages, he thought as he appraised the American settler. ‘Then you might be of considerable help to me in the future,’ he said. ‘I plan to organise a patrol to hunt down the recalcitrant darkies and bring them to justice and I will need the assistance of such experienced men as yourself to swell the depleted ranks of the Native Mounted Police.’

‘A posse you mean, Inspector,’ Commanche Jack said with a wry grin. ‘Sure, I'll ride with you.’

‘We don't have posses in the colonies,’ Gordon commented with an embarrassed cough. ‘Such oddities appear to be peculiar to you Yankees, I'm afraid.’

‘Whatever you want to call it, I'll be in it,’ the American answered with a grin that revealed tobacco stained teeth. ‘I'd like to get me a darkie scalp while they're still around fer the gettin'.’