Shadow of the Osprey (40 page)

Mort gazed up at the rainforest-covered hill. The Irishman was somewhere up there but finding O’Flynn without an Aboriginal tracker was going to be extremely difficult. Nevertheless it was imperative that they should keep close on his heels.

He had debated with himself whether he should split his party and send on one half to try and set up a cordon near Cooktown. But he dismissed the idea, thinking of how easy it would be to slip past a few men in the dark near the town. This left him with one option. ‘Mister Sims. We are going up the hill.’

Sims groaned and passed on the message to the pirate captain. Woo stared with disbelief up at the range of hills covered in a tangle of rainforest and realised that the search for the men who had ambushed them would not only be physically arduous, but also downright dangerous. The ambushers had a ruthless efficiency in the way they had hit and run.

Woo’s fears were echoed silently by Sims. He too had no desire to plunge into the ominous rainforest above them in the pursuit of O’Flynn. But his fear of Mort was greater than his fear of the Irish mercenary, and he now bitterly regretted that he had changed his mind about jumping ship in Cooktown when they had initially sailed into port.

Mort’s men advanced with great caution up the hill. Within the hour they stumbled onto the dead horses in the small valley below. The discovery sent a chill through every man. With frightened looks they glanced around the valley, as if expecting to see the painted warriors suddenly emerge, ululating bloodchilling war cries of the black cockatoo and falling on them with stone axes and spears. They were more than eager to leave the oppressive valley and return to the more open plains of the Palmer track.

But Mort was forced to make camp for the night. Already the deep gloom of the valley descended into an inky blackness and he knew it was hopeless to try and find the Irishman in the dark. Besides, he figured, with a sense of savage satisfaction, O’Flynn would also have to make camp for the night.

Mort stared at the dead horses realising that their discovery had been a gift from the devil. The Irish bastard no longer had horses to get himself and his party clear of the mountains. Now he would be on even terms to hunt down O’Flynn and kill him.

W
allarie had been gone two days when the Werners received their first visitors at the Schmidt farm. Caroline first noticed the tiny cloud of dust on the horizon and the faint outline of a small column of horsemen. ‘Husband,’ she called from the brackish, reed-covered waterhole about a hundred yards from the shanty, ‘men are coming.’

Otto pulled on his black coat over his shirt and braces and hurried down to join his wife. ‘They are mounted policemen,’ he observed, shading his eyes against the rising sun hanging low behind the men. ‘I count five of them.’

They stood together waiting for the patrol. A young officer rode ahead of the troop which came to a halt a short distance away. The man was hardly in his twenties. His uniform was covered in dust and his eyes a rheumy red from too many hours of scanning the plains. Behind him were three rough-looking white troopers and an Aboriginal trooper dressed in the uniform of his colleagues. The young officer reined in before the missionaries.

‘I am Inspector Garland sir. Who may you be?’ he asked somewhat brusquely.

From his manner Otto deduced that the young man was not used to polite niceties. ‘I am Pastor Werner and this is my vife Frau Werner,’ Otto formally replied.

The young officer glanced at Caroline with unbridled desire and she instinctively moved closer to her husband. Otto had seen his look and bridled at the boorish manner of the young policeman sitting haughtily in the saddle looking down upon them.

‘You must be the godbotherer the old German mentioned in his letter,’ Garland said, rustling in the saddlebag behind him. He produced a large leather wallet crammed with papers and a letter which he passed down to Otto. ‘We found the old German yesterday on our patrol.’

Sadly Otto glanced up from the letter. ‘Herr Schmidt is dead. Ja?’ Both Caroline and the policeman expressed looks of surprise. ‘I know this Inspector. This is Herr Schmidt’s final vishes.’

‘Thought it might be,’ the inspector grunted. ‘Don’t read German but I did recognise your name written in there.’

Otto turned to his wife and spoke in German, not feeling obliged to be polite to the young man. ‘Herr Schmidt has left us this place to be used as a mission station. He has said that the only friends he had out here were the wandering Aboriginal people who were very kind to him. He has begged us to look after them, my wife.’

Caroline nodded and tears came to her eyes, remembering the man who, despite being obviously wounded by a European bullet, had saved their lives when he could have just as easily let them die. ‘We have found God’s will,’ she replied simply, ‘and it is to give our lives to the true people of this land.’

Otto felt a burst of love for this beautiful woman who had followed him into hell. He knew that it would be she who would provide the true strength he would need to go on.

‘Sorry to interrupt you Reverend,’ Garland said somewhat irritably at being ignored. ‘But how did you get here?’

Otto turned his attention back to the officer.

‘An Aborigine person guided us here when we were out of vater.’

‘His name wasn’t Wallarie by any chance?’ Garland asked as he leaned forward in the saddle. Otto frowned at the question.

‘Who is this Vallarie you talk about?’ he asked.

‘A murderin’ charcoal we have been tracking since a body was found a few days from here with his spear in ’im. At least that’s who my tracker tells me got the prospector. Trooper Jimmy used to be with the Native Mounted Police a few years back down in Rockhampton. That’s where he said he’s seen the spear before. This Wallarie speaks a bit of English.’

Otto stared into the eyes of the officer. ‘The Aboriginal who helped meine vife and I could not speak German or English, Inspector.’ The officer returned the stare for a brief moment. It was a contest, as they both knew.

‘Then my tracker must be wrong,’ Garland finally said. ‘He says that the blackfella we are tracking is the legendary Darambal man of central Queensland and well-known killer of Europeans, good, God-fearing Christians.’

‘The man who helped us was very old,’ Otto lied without hesitation. ‘Maybe in his seventies. How old is this Vallarie person you are hunting?’

The Inspector straightened in his saddle and glared at the missionary. ‘From what I have heard about him, he would not be that old.’

‘Ach, then the man who helped us could not be this Vallarie you are hunting. The man who helped us is probably just a vild blackman from the bush around here.’

‘Well, we will not bother you any longer Reverend,’ Garland said as he reined his horse away. ‘I am sure a man of the cloth would not lie to Her Majesty’s constabulary,’ he added sarcastically. Trooper Jimmy was the most experienced tracker on the frontier and was never wrong about anything to do with charcoals. If he said they had tracked the notorious killer blackfella to Schmidt’s farm – then that was it. It was obvious that the German missionaries had been helped by the blackfella in some way and were protecting him. But it did not bide well to harass a member of the clergy. The authorities frowned very strongly on such matters. From what he had heard of Wallarie’s reputation the hunt would not be easy. Legend had it that the warrior had been the companion of the equally notorious bushranger Tom Duffy and that the Darambal man had a great knowledge of European ways and weapons. Coupled with his inherent skills in the bush he was indeed a formidable foe to pursue. But Trooper Jimmy was an equal match.

As he rode to rejoin his troop waiting in their saddles a short distance away he noticed a strange expression on Trooper Jimmy’s face. If he did not know any better he would have thought he saw a terrible fear in the Aboriginal police tracker’s dark eyes.

‘You still have his tracks?’ Garland asked when he reined in beside his tracker. Jimmy ducked his head. Garland could see that his man was extremely nervous. He had never seen Trooper Jimmy behave like this before. ‘Can you still see Wallarie’s tracks?’ he asked again irritably.

‘No boss,’ Jimmy answered furtively. ‘Track all gone . . . track all blown away . . . Wallarie gone.’

‘You lyin’ to me?’ Garland hissed menacingly. ‘You’ve had him all the way to Schmidt’s farm. So how could he disappear? I know you Jimmy. You could track a fart in a crowded pub on pay day.’

‘Sorry boss,’ Trooper Jimmy mumbled. ‘Track all gone.’

Garland shook his head in resignation and sighed. He knew from his long experience with his tracker that nothing would budge him when he set his mind to it. At least now he had an excuse to turn around and return to the camp a hundred miles back. There was enough to do around the goldfields without setting out on an expedition in pursuit of just one blackfella suspected of killing a prospector. At least back in the police camp he could get a drink, a wash and a woman. As it was he had been warned by the older troopers back at the barracks that hunting Wallarie was a waste of time. There was an almost grudging respect for the man from both Aboriginal and European troopers who had attempted to hunt him years earlier. He remembered something an Aboriginal trooper once said to him. Garland turned to his trooper. ‘He has used magic, hasn’t he?’

Jimmy did not answer but glanced away guiltily. How could the whitefellas know about blackfella magic? How could they read the signs that he could when their eyes were closed. Jimmy glanced at the eagle feathers scattered across the track. They were the signs put there by Wallarie to warn him off. Jimmy sensed the power of the magic and feared its deadly strength. Working for the white man for tucker and tobacco was not worth his life.

Garland did not expect an answer from his tracker. He had the answer in the stricken expression on the man’s face. He glanced back at the tall missionary standing beside his pretty wife by the dwindling waterhole. If a man of the Bible was prepared to lie for a myall killer then there could be something in the magic bit that protected the Darambal warrior. The police inspector was starting to feel that he had worked amongst the Aboriginal people for too long. He was starting to believe in their ways.

Otto watched the horsemen disappear in the direction from whence they had come. He knew that for some reason they were no longer interested in continuing the pursuit of the man who had saved their lives.

‘You did not tell the policeman the truth,’ Caroline said quietly as she watched the patrol fade into the dust. But it was not an accusation.

‘No my wife. I lied. Just as Danny Boy lied to us,’ he answered ruefully. ‘But I understand why he had to lie to us.’

‘Do you not think that it was our duty to tell the policeman that Danny Boy might have been the man they sought?’

Otto glanced at his wife from the corner of his eye. ‘God sent us an angel to save and guide us to our new home, not a devil as the police think this Wallarie person to be. The black man who helped us had a good soul. I could sense it as strongly as I can smell the red earth of this land.’

Caroline touched her husband’s elbow. It was her way of letting him know that she accepted what he said to be true.

‘Well, Herr Schmidt has left us all his land to build a mission station,’ Otto said as he turned to walk back to the rough bush hut. According to his letter it seems he knew that he was dying and set out for help. When he realised that he would not make it he set out his last will and testament leaving all that he owned to us and the Aboriginal people. It has been witnessed and formally notarised. This land is legally ours . . . and the Aboriginal people we must help in the years ahead.’

‘Do you think Wallarie will ever return to us?’ Caroline asked quietly as they walked towards the hut.

‘I think Danny Boy will,’ he replied with an enigmatic smile. ‘After he has done what ever mission God has sent him on.’

‘N
o use going on. We could walk off a cliff,’ Christie advised as he and Michael stood on a ridge gazing across the magnificent vista. The night was rapidly descending and as spectacular as the view was, Michael saw the valleys and ridges not for their natural beauty, but for the lung-tearing, strength-sapping obstacles they presented to their retreat from Mort.

‘We move out before first light,’ Michael said wearily. ‘We set up a sentry roster for the night. No fires and we keep close together.’

The others listened and nodded their exhausted agreement. With glazed eyes they stared at the soft purple shadows covering the mountain in front of them while a scatter of mauve-edged clouds drifted like a delicately stained blanket hiding the tree-lined ridge. If that mountain was to be climbed the next day they held out little hope of getting back to Cooktown.

But Christie had no intention of tackling the mountain. His keen eyes were already plotting a course through the valley below. He could distinguish a creek line in the thicket of rainforest as the shadows pointed out the changes in the valley’s topography to him. It would not be easy in the dense scrub, he surmised. But they did have jungle knives to hack a way through the tangle of vines.

Hue followed John to the base of a giant tree, the buttress roots of which provided a cosy nook for the night. She sat beside him and he passed her something to eat. ‘It’s dried meat,’ he said when he saw her puzzled expression. ‘Like the way your people dry fish.’

With a delicate bite she gnawed at the meat stick which had the consistency of leather. Finally, she was able to bite a piece off. It tasted salty but good.

John smiled at the girl’s suspicious reaction to her first taste of jerky. ‘You will have to make it last because that is all I have,’ he said with a sigh.

‘You speak Chinese well for a white man,’ she said as she savoured the strong flavour. ‘But then, you also have Chinese blood.’

‘You speak Chinese well for a Chinese,’ he replied with a grin. Hue looked away shyly. He was surprised to see her unexpected reaction. She was, after all, the daughter of a mandarin, and he had not expected to see her act as a young girl might. His smile continued as his eyes roamed over her. She was tiny in comparison to him, and under her blue trousers and jacket, he could see that she was slim in a boyish way.

Hue found his frank appraisal refreshing. He was not intimidated by her simply because she was the daughter of a mandarin. She guessed that his brashness was part of his European blood.

‘I also speak French,’ she said proudly, and anger suddenly clouded her beautiful face. ‘It is the language of my enemy,’ she frowned. Although John was only vaguely aware of the place called Cochin China, he was less aware of the French insidiously colonising the land of the Viets.

‘Tell me about you,’ John said disarmingly, and Hue’s thoughts of politics waned under his friendly and frank gaze. She smiled, and talked softly about her life until Henry came late in the night to tell him it was John’s turn to stand guard.

When Henry and the girl made their way back to the makeshift camp, John sat with his back against a tree, while the others snatched some welcome sleep. He sighed. Of all the girls to be interested in, he mused as he watched and listened in the night, it had to be one who just happened to be the daughter of nobility and a rebel against the French.

Possums rustled in the trees and their sound was vaguely reassuring. But John tensed when he heard the rustle behind him. Very slowly, he raised his rifle, and Hue’s pale face suddenly loomed in front of him. He relaxed, and lowered the gun.

‘I was frightened and could not sleep,’ she whispered in a small voice as she sat beside him. ‘I feel safer with you.’ For the first time since she had been taken prisoner by the Chinese pirates, Hue felt an overwhelming need to trust in another human – and a need for emotional comfort. Her life as a rebel against the French and many of her own people who had collaborated with the European colonisers had kept her in a perpetual state of tension and suspicion. But deep in the forests of the land so alien and far from her own she felt that she was no longer the young woman who had once stood against the French invaders. Here she was a woman who depended on the courage and determination of others to save her. Her fate had passed from her hands.

Within minutes she was asleep, her head resting against John’s broad chest. Very gently he slipped his muscled arm around her shoulders and holding her he experienced a tenderness that he had never known before. He felt awkward. It was as if he were holding some ethereal creature, something so fragile that the mere movement of his arm might crush her. Her breath was warm and moist against his throat. But his moment of tenderness was short lived when he remembered Soo Yin’s instructions. To betray Soo Yin was to invite death in an obscenely slow manner. Inevitably, he would have to betray the men he depended on to survive the flight across the jungle-covered range, and that would not be easy. But he knew his sworn duty to the tong leader in Cooktown.