Mary Brock Jones (15 page)

“Your sister, you say. You claiming that wee slip of a girl can outshoot you?”

“Not me, boys. Most any of you, yes, but not me.”

There was a good-natured growling amongst the men.

“Let’s see it them. Come on, Missy. Show us what you can do.”

Nessa’s face was bright red by now, and she glared angrily at Philip as she was prodded forward.

“Better hope her aim ain’t too good, young feller. Looks like she’s planning to use your backside for target practice.”

“I’m tempted,” Nessa found herself calling back, then clamped her mouth shut. Where had that come from?

“Far rock, best of three,” said Philip beside her. “Take a couple of warm up shots first to get your eye in.”

She stomped forward. “This is a new gun, you dolt. Apart from those practice sessions we had, I’ve haven’t used it,” she hissed angrily.

“I know, but you don’t have to beat me. Best you don’t in fact. Just show them you can shoot.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her gun, cocked it and checked the sights. There was a gasp around her.

“You carry that gun all the time, Missy?”

“Always,” she called back to the crowd, still annoyed at Philip and the rest of these stupid men. “And I keep it loaded.”

She lined her target up, letting off a couple of quick shots at the base of the rock. Dust flew up and an eerie silence fell. She nodded to Philip, who extravagantly waved her to go first. The targets had been set up a way off, still in range but near the limit at which she felt confident with this gun. She stood square, legs apart to brace herself and lined up her gun. Beside her, Philip did the same, aiming for the target beside hers. They fired at the same time. Up the hill, a man ran in to check the results, then stood, both arms lifted high. “Both true,” he yelled. The silence got even tenser.

The targets were lined up again. Again, brother and sister fired. Nessa held her breath. Philip’s target went flying, hers stood for a moment in time, then toppled over. The man looked, checked hers, then lifted both hands again. She took a breath. Nearly missed that one.

One more shot. Philip gave her a glance. They knew each other so well. He aimed, his gun pointed dead centre at the small branch of twigs. She lifted hers and aimed too.

Bang, bang. Two shots rang out. Up ahead, the man ran in but no one needed his call to know the result. Philip’s target was flattened. Nessa’s still stood. The man ran back.

“Brother, dead centre again. Sister, just to one side.”

Nessa turned to Philip. “Congratulations, brother.”

He pulled her into a hug. “Good shot, Sis,” he said quietly, “and thank you for not scaring these folks too much. Just enough for safety.”

Around her was a wild cheering. Then a call for drinks. One by one, they all came up and clapped her on the back, then hammered Philip’s too.

“As nice a show as we’ve seen for many a day.”

“And you say you carry that gun always, Missy? And it’s loaded? I sure ain’t about to mess with you none,” said another. Ted was nearby and watching.

“Not a good idea,” agreed Philip jovially. “Quiet as a lamb is my sister, usually. But get her annoyed and she’s likely to act first and think second.”

Ted moved quietly off, but couldn’t avoid the suddenly hard look in Philip’s eye. “And if she don’t get angry enough at anyone bothering her, then I surely would,” he added in a loud voice.

“Don’t worry, young fella, we get the message. Anyways, you be a friend of John Reid and the packers, hear tell. So if we didn’t get our backsides shot out by one of you two, the packers would soon hit our supplies. Ain’t no one going to mess with the young lady, are they, boys?”

It was a big man who spoke, an older miner from a claim up the river a bit. He looked round at the rest gathered there and the message was loud and clear. There was a general head nodding all around.

“Thank you,” said Philip. “Now, who’s for a drink?”

A hearty cheer rose as Tom pulled out the jugs, to be soon joined by jugs from the other camps.

“Time to go to your tent, Nessa,” said Philip quietly. “Don’t worry. They’re not in the mood for trouble, and I will be right outside.”

She looked carefully into his face. It hadn’t changed, or not much. He was still the young boy she had known always, still the pompous youth who had so precipitately ruined her Queenstown life but, beneath, something was changing. Her baby brother was growing up.

“Thank you,” she said as quietly. “And, Philip.”

“Yes.”

“Mother and Father would have been proud of you tonight.”

She was glad she had said it. The sudden glow on his face was reward enough. She slipped quietly into her tent, lying down fully dressed with her loaded pistol beside her. But tonight she felt safer than … almost as safe as the last night she had slept in John Reid’s stone cabin.

John crested the rise. He had thought he could stay away, stupidly imagined he could finish his business here and go back home without seeing her. Lord knows he had been busy enough in the days since that last disastrous meeting. William Rees, the local run holder and now prosperous businessman, was an old friend. One of the first to settle this forbidding country, he was a good source of both stock and advice. John had made the most of both. Five good breeding rams would follow him home, and sound words on how to keep farming in the midst of the madness of a gold rush were lodged firmly in his head.

He was done now and ready for the long trail back to his own country. He came to the ford over the Shotover, was nearly heading home, when his horse’s head turned. He had no memory of his hands’ movements, could not remember their touch on the reins. They pulled the reins to the side, and his heels urged the horse on without any conscious thought from him.

His body knew better than his head, it seemed. He could not leave without seeing her.

She would not welcome him. That last look before she followed her brother said that. It was for her own good! So said the scornful part of him. And is she better off now? I don’t know, said the anguished reply. He let the horse plod on up the new path, urging him only slightly.

She was bending over when he arrived at her camp, her beautiful figure clearly evident to his greedy eye, even under the calico dress and petticoats. He drank her in. She was absorbed in her work, scrubbing at the clothes in the old bucket that served as wash tub, pummelling at the cloth. The ferocious movement rocked her lovely rear forward and back. He shifted uncomfortably in his saddle and was suddenly grateful she did not yet know he was there.

Then his horse stepped forward, striking a hoof on the shale. She swung sharply around, standing ready to repel an intruder, then recognised him. There was a dead silence. He no longer needed to fear embarrassment, his body sent into sharp retreat by the anger flaring in her face. He dismounted carefully, keeping his hands in front and making no threatening move.

“Good day to you, Miss Ward.”

“Mr Reid.” The barest of nods.

“It’s a fine day for the washing.”

“Yes.”

The stilted pleasantries of a well-brought-up lady. Never had they seemed more hateful.

“You are well?” he finally ventured.

“I thank you, yes.” She stepped back, behind the washtub, hands clutching the sides. “And you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re leaving?” she asked.

He nodded. “I’m on my way back to the run now. I just thought… That is, I wanted to be sure…”

She refused to help him, letting the silence stand.

“Your brother has provided adequately for you? You will be safe?”

“My brother has always cared for my well being and is well able to protect me.”

“Of course, good. But if you should need… That is, if ever you feel…” Why would the words not come? He gasped, needing air. “If ever you need anything, let the packers know. I will always come. That is a promise.”

“You have helped us more than enough already, sir. We cannot presume on your good will any longer.” She gripped the tub ever tighter, as if to a life line.

But she did not turn away. Nor did she move towards him, just stood there watching, looking like she would break apart if he dared so much as take a step closer. He could not do it to her.

“I will be on my way then. Give my regards to your brother and my good wishes in his fortune hunting. I hope you will see fit to call in to us on your way back to the coast, whatever the outcome. My home is always open to you. Always.”

He climbed slowly back on the horse, keeping her in sight the entire time. Only when the trail forced him to look away did he tear his eyes from her. She had not moved, a still, silent figure of breathtaking beauty and unbearable pain.

He had hurt her. Maybe he should be pleased to know he was important enough to her to be able to do that. Maybe. So why did he feel like his tongue was coated in cold ash and his life’s path had plummeted into a trackless waste?

That was the last she had seen him. Three long months had passed since that day, months that had changed her. Months of rootless wandering without an end she could see.

Tildie Fleming had warned her, as had the Major at the Arrow. “Your brother’s a drifter,” the Major had said. “I’ve seen enough miners to know one. Always dreaming of the big strike just over the hill. He’ll chase every new strike, that one.”

He had been right. “This field’s run out,” Philip would say, and she must pack everything and move on to the next field.

Would they ever go home to England? She straightened up from pummelling the clothes on the stony banks of the Manuherikia, the small river that ran beside their latest camp site. England. Home. Strange words. She had barely visited the land of her birth, and had never known a place to call home. For her, home was family, being with the people she loved most. It had never been a place.

Then, unbidden, came the image of a cottage of solid cob walls set on a hillside of waving grasses.

She stamped her foot, brushed her gown briskly down to banish any stray grains of dust, banished the picture from her mind. She reached for the bucket of wet clothes, stomped back up the path and slapped them over the outcrop of rocks near her tent to dry. Work. Hard work. That’s what she needed.

That night, the look she had come to dread was back on Philip’s face—a combination of smiling anticipation and daring excitement.

“A man came through today. Says there’s good pay dirt on the other side of the Old Man Range. Campbell’s, they call the field. There’s colour in every wash, he reckons.”

Nessa had learnt not to argue. There was no point. “I’ll start packing tonight,” she said. “We can leave first thing.”

She had done this so many times before. Always, for Philip, there was a new, big strike. The names ran together in memory: Conways, Blacks, Tuckers—a few weeks at each, just enough to start making pay dirt, but no big strike. A man only had to tell a story of some mythical bonanza in a newly discovered valley and that look would come onto his face again.

Nessa had given up trying to start a business and kept her languages skills to herself these days. A curious listlessness had fallen over her, and Philip barely had to open his mouth now for Nessa to start packing.

That night, the other miners in this small place gathered at their tent. It was a very small settlement here. The Manuherikia River nearby yielded only enough for a miner to get by.

Nessa sat in the middle of the group. There were two other women, both married and one with a baby she cradled, rocking it in her arms. A hard place to raise a wee one, but the pervasive sense of hope that infected all who followed the gold lived here too. The young mother showed no concern at having to manage in such a rough place.

“One day, my Bob says, we’ll live in a mansion and have servants ’n all to do for us,” she would say brightly to Nessa as they both pounded their washing against the rocks of the stream. Nessa never had the heart to do other than nod and smile. She might think otherwise, but who was she to burst the girl’s dreams. Maybe she was even right.

Looking at her now, nursing her baby and laughing merrily at the jibing they were all giving Philip, Nessa had to smile. Suddenly, she could no more deny the mood of the place than any of those around their brightly dancing fire. Who knew? Maybe Philip would strike it big at last in this new field? Maybe they too would ‘live in a big house with servants ‘n all’, and she found herself laughing along with the rest.

She looked at her brother, studying him in the flickering light of the open fire in a way she had not done in a very long time. Philip took all the jibes, and gave back in equal measure, a wide grin on his face.

He was changing, was her little brother. Growing up, she supposed you called it. Looking at him now, she made herself see the man the others round the fire saw. A young miner from his drill trousers to the rough calico shirts and his work-roughened hands. He was clapping in time with the song started by Black Jimbo, the big rough Cornishman seated beside him. Jimbo worked hard, would fight hard if need be, but always kept a battered old fiddle nearby, pulling it out and breaking into song at the least excuse. A song of the Tuapeka he had started now, a song of mournful toil in the harsh life they led with so often no reward. But in Jimbo’s clever voice, the words took on a devil-may-care lilt, and one and all they joined with him. Fate may string you a poor wash, but that didn’t mean a man couldn’t laugh.

She watched Philip sing, his mouth open and joy on his face. In her heart, she knew no great fortune awaited him, or any of those sitting here. She had seen too much of the vast array of humanity that flocked to the gold in these last months. There were those who struck it rich and those who would always miss out. Too hasty, too lacking in will to keep on with the digging in a place that carried all the signs of gold, too eager to scratch the surface here, before leaping onto the next claim. Sure, there was luck in those who hit it big, but a man made his own luck too.

Deep down in a place she rarely dared to expose, she knew what she had lost in leaving Queenstown. A thriving town like that, still growing apace—there was more money for the taking there than in any of the hard gorges and dry river beds. Her business would have thrived. Her skill with languages was a sorely needed service here, and Philip had skills as well, a talent with weapons and words that had kept her safe in the Shotover gorge and so many other times. Together, said a bitterness deep in her heart, they could have earned all they needed to go home to England by now if they had stayed in Queenstown.