LINGER AND DIE
by Neil Brooka
Part six (chapters eleven and twelve) of my steemit weekly(ish) serial
And for those who came in late, click here and check my blog to start from the start.
CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE BLACK FOREST
For a long time following that chaotic evacuation, a rigid tension had descended upon the group. Feeling obliged to show some level of solidarity, Johnny and Caesar had leashed their stolen mounts to the back of the drey and were now sitting upon either side of Mary. In this way, the two men – still fired up – would occasionally give a violent glance over their shoulders at the slightest twinge of danger. Thankfully they only ever found their horse's long faces staring back at them through the tunnel of the dray in tow.
All night and all morning they had made their way in this fashion. Nobody spoke, nor even looked at each other. There was no question, now, that if any of them were caught, all would be hanged; Mary for the deaths of Lynch and McGuire as witnessed by the trooper, Johnny for the probable death of the other trooper whose skull he had caved in, and Caesar, already having the spectre of the Jimmy McGee shooting on his record, now stood to take the blame for the disappearance of the Duffy family.
That night they decided against having a fire. The weather wasn't too grim, but early the following morning it was so cold that the three of them ended up bundled up in their coffins on the cart. When they finally roused themselves, any passing travellers might have been been forgiven in thinking they'd come across a family of mismatched vampires.
That day they gnawed on their stale damper bread and shared a raw potato. There was no time, Mary kept telling them, to stop and catch something with meat on its bones; most of the sheep and cattle-runs were further up north, at least a couple more days on the trundle. The first lamb in sight, Caesar promised, would be fair game and damn the consequences.
Presently they found the terrain thickening. A mountain range had become visible during some of the higher points in the track, but the bush was becoming too thick to keep an eye on anything above tree level. A calm seemed to have muffled the wildlife in the hot midday sun, and in their exhaustion it was easy to imagine all the little creatures sleeping off their foraged meals in the cool of their burrows. While the trio of stomach-rumblings grumbled and squeaked with the wheels and leather, a kind of unspoken stupor set itself in – with each passing tree, with each violent jolt in the road.
As if saluting a funeral procession, a murder of crows hopped in a line by the path to let them pass, lazily addressing them with casual insults, wing ruffles and sideways looks. Caesar clapped his hands at the avian spectres, but the birds only hopped a few feet back, some flapping atop a bloated carcass of a bullock nearby.
"I wonder how much our rewards will be," said Caesar, throwing another bitter glance at the crows. “The storm Mary seems to have stirred ... The governor wanting her ... The governor for Christ's sake. I wonder how many men will snitch and murder to get their hands on the bounty.”
"You'd murder for reward?" Johnny shot at Caesar. “Mary should have picked her friends more carefully.” He crossed his arms and looked pompously off into the distance.
"You're a serious man, Johnny," said Caesar with a scoff and a flick.
As if to emphasize his contempt for the portentous remark, Caesar took another swig from the flagon he'd taken from Lynch's. Mary glanced between the two of them as if they were children.
"Caesar might not murder you for a drink," she said, taking the flagon for herself, “but who's to say what I'm capable of?”
"Hah, It's not you I'm worried about," replied Johnny.
"You might do well to heed my provenance, little man," said Mary. “I've probably killed more men than you.”
"So you do the killing as well as the grave digging?" said Caesar, smiling and taking back the bottle.
Johnny, clearly ticked off by the drinking and sudden lack of vigilance, turned his back on the two to squint back up the track.
"Lynch was self defence," shrugged Mary in mock innocence, “and McGuire was a mercy killing plain and simple. I've never killed anyone in cold blood.”
"In cold blood –" murmured Caesar.
"It's means killing someone without emotion," said Johnny, “or circumstantial justification.” Truth be told he was feeling more than a little sensitive over the fact that little Nigger had been left behind. He had told Caesar to get the dog, but he obviously hadn't even tried. “So Lynch attacked you did he?” said Johnny with no humour what-so-ever. “Because I can't get that scene out of my head, probably won't do for as long as I live, and Lynch didn't have a weapon –”
"He's just ribbin' you Mrs Draper," said Caesar, forcing the bottle into Johnny's hands with a grimace.
"What about you, Johnny?" began Mary, not bothering to defend herself. “You ever kill a man in cold blood?”
"I'll tell you this: I felt worse hobbling those horses – or leaving poor Nigger behind – than I have of any man's life I've ever put down."
"A cold man," said Caesar, snatching back the bottle that Johnny had not yet taken advantage of.
"You lot should go easy," advised Johnny. “Rum begets mischief.”
"Lack of rum begets tiresome journeys and tiresome companionship," countered Mary.
High up before them an eaglehawk circled above some thick scrub, balancing precariously upon the still afternoon air.
"I can see every face," said Caesar, “every slumped outline, and every twitch of all the men I've killed and they all deserved it.”
Johnny snorted.
"Johnny hasn't finished his confession yet," said Mary.
"Go on Johnny," said Caesar.
"It's bad taste."
"He's ashamed," said Mary.
"I've never killed anyone and been ashamed of it," said Caesar. “Johnny had on yellow colours on that ship, Mrs Draper. Johnny here, it seems, was a rabble rouser of the Irish.”
Johnny said nothing.
"So it might be a reasonable guess," he continued, “that all the men he's killed was with wrath or pig headed catholic doggedness. What say you Johnny?”
Again Johnny seemed to hunch into his seat, retreating as if by chemical reaction to the questioning he'd not bargained for in taking advantage of Mary's value. The two seemed to him to have teamed up against him. And this dry fucking wind and miserable parched bush.
The eaglehawk, still wavering up above, looked to have spotted something in the grass. It folded its wings and dropped. All around, as the lumbering dray moved further into wilderness, the hunger of nature seemed to cry out for a kill. The great bird ascended back into the sky, claws empty, its head twitching this way and that. Nearby, in the spindles of a dead tree came the hungry screeches of her young.
"I've fought for what I've believed in," said Johnny finally. “Got transport in 1799 for being involved in a riot against the crown,” he lied. “T'was nothing really.” In truth it had been for hawking radical newspapers he'd not even been able to read.
"You got transport in 1799? You would have been young," said Mary.
"I was fourteen," said Johnny. “Shipped not far from Melbourne – Sorento, at Port Philip Heads – before they moved us on to Van Diemon's Land.”
Mary thought he still looked closer to sixty than fifty-four. "And you stand by your fourteen year old thinking?"
"It's a little more complicated ... It's not natural growing up under the fist of the empire."
"Since when did pride stop being a sin for the catholic church?" said Caesar.
"You think it's pride that is the reaction to political and spiritual oppression?"
"You want to talk about oppression?" began Caesar.
"You're political now are you?" said Johnny. “Spiritual too? I bet you don't even know where it was those blackbirds picked you from.”
"See if you were me, right now" said Caesar, “and I were you, in this situation, my blood would boil off my head and I'd throttle you right here on the spot. That would be pride.”
"And a great fucking closeted philosopher," said Johnny.
Caesar didn't bother to be drawn in by Johnny's insults. Instead he sat surveying the landscape. Eventually Johnny gave up waiting for the fists he thought must surely be coming his way, and so sat back with crossed arms and a crossed brow and brooded.
"He seems to have put more thought into it than you," said Mary with a laugh.
"I'll not be spoken down to by some daft cunt of a women," said Johnny, humping up and down with the corrugated dirt road. “Where's that bottle?”
"If you Irish can't handle yourselves sober you sure as fuck shouldn't be allowed the bottle," said Caesar, taking a defiant swig.
"That's what I'm talking about," said Johnny. “Anyone would think you were a royal brown-nose with that talk.”
"That's oppression to you is it?" said Caesar.
"Look out Mary."
Mary looked at Johnny as if he were simple.
"Look out," Caesar seconded, pulling the rains from her hands.
Sitting on the rut-hump of the road, not far up ahead, was a blackskin. He was mostly wrapped up in a grey possum skin cloak so that all they could really see of him was his head of matted, thick hair. As they sat, not more than ten feet away, he seemed to be ignoring them. He was looking up in the opposite direction toward the bird of prey swooping upon the thermals of some unseen valley below.
"Hello there," saluted Johnny.
The figure turned and they saw it was a man – possibly in his late thirties with wide features and puffy, defiant eyes that avoided any contact. The figure acknowledge them with a wave.
"You come yabba-yabba," said the blackskin.
Mary rippled the reigns and the horses shuffled forward.
"You lot come along. Red man sulky." the blackskin pointed behind them.
"Red man?" said Mary.
The blackskin picked a green leaf from the ground and held it against his cloak. Johnny jumped from the cart, searching the ground, and picked up another leaf. It was red with age and he held it near the other, but closer to the black man's chest who nodded.
"Real sulky one."
"He means Tulip?" said Caesar.
"God knows how he'd know about that," said Johnny. He shrugged and jumped back next to Mary.
For a few moments the four of them stared at each other. The blackskin, still avoiding eyes, examined the cart, the horses and their clothes, but still remained silent.
"You lot got trackers? Native police. Tracker – for red man?" said Mary.
"No chance," said the blackskin, holding his hand and pulling them back as if burned, “no worries.”
"Is that a fact?" came Caesar's sceptical voice.
"You fellas come along."
"He wants us to come talk at his camp," said Johnny. “I guess if they meant to turn us in there'd not much we could do about it. Tulip'd probably already have us.”
"This way river," said the blackskin, scooping his arm around and toward the ranges before turning to them again. “Name Binjie from way up north. White fella name Wingy Jim. These fellas,” he pointed up and around “Woiwurong man. Very sulky.”
Johnny jumped from the cart and held out a hand.
"Good to meet you, Binjie," he said, “I'm Johnny. Irishman.” He pointed to Mary. “Mary Scotland, and Caesar Indies. From all around.”
Mary spun in her seat as Johnny proceed to rummage around in the cart to reappear with one of the flagons and a small sack of flour.
"What are you?" began Mary, “That's our stores.”
"Trade," said Johnny. “We're the good guys aren’t we?”
Binjie turned and picked something up that looked like a large anchor, but with white feathers trimmed with black. It took a second for them to see that it was a Pelican, its wings hooking out from its long, flaccid neck.
"Go on ... Good one," said Binjie
Johnny took the bird. "Creek near by?"
"Water up along," Binjie said pointing to the right of the road, then up in the direction of his camp.
"Why waste all this stuff on them?" said Caesar, a look of disgust on his face as Binjie headed up the road, turning occasionally to beckon the horses along.
"Local knowledge," said Johnny. “He knows about Tulip and I bet he knows where all the iron gangs are working. Might come in use, don't you think?”
"Up that way bad place. Don't go up there," yelled Binjie pointing back down south. “Sulky man trooper.”
"Well it was you who was crying for some meat," said Mary, taking the awkward pelican carcass and slumping it in Caesar's lap, “so I guess it's your lucky day, bonny boy.”
Caesar examined the heavy bird, grasped a fistful of feathers and started plucking.
For over an hour Binjie lead them ambling along the track. Occasionally, when the trees would thin enough, they'd see the crown of the large mountain range. As they travelled further the scrub grew thicker so that one had the feeling of being funnelled into some native ambush.
Soon Binjie indicated that they should stop and continue on foot. Mary only agreed to follow once they had disguised the dray in foliage and tied the horses up further into the trees.
Johnny strode after Binjie with a jump in his stride. Mary and Caesar (now with the Pelican over his shoulder) followed further back. The two were a lot more wary than their enthusiastic accomplice, and Mary suspected Johnny had paid too much fantasy into the legendary stories of William Buckley and his friendly relationship with the natives.
"What's there to be afraid of?" called back Johnny. “They're very accommodating people.” He skipped back and punched Caesar on the arm. “Very accommodating.”
"What the fuck are you talking about?" snapped Mary. “I hope you've not got any exploitative thoughts on your mind.”
"Mary, Mary," Johnny reassured her. “They're really quite a simple race. Ilike them. But they live in this pathetic poverty and we might be of some use to them. They're really quite poor at managing their own affairs.”
Caesar squinted past Johnny and flicked a nod to where Binjie had stopped by a small clearing. Around a fire squatted a group of three men in similar attire to Binjie – with long possum skin cloaks. Standing behind these men were a number of mostly naked children. The older boys wore simple cloth blankets that had probably been distributed by mission workers.
For Caesar and Johnny, the first thing they noticed were the bare chested young women. For Mary it was a group of two, much older woman, sitting cross-legged by a long outstretch body laid out upon long strips of paper-bark. Mary moved toward the body in two quick strides before coming to a halt. Johnny and Caesar moved past her, but she stopped them before they could take another step. From where she stood, the horrible details of the body pointed to something she had known in prison. Johnny and Caesar should have known better.
"Him, Mindi, great snake come," said Binjie, picking up some dust and hurling it into the air. “This Mindi mischief.”
"A snake did this?" stammered Johnny.
"That was no snake," said Mary, “that's smallpox.”
The body was covered with what looked to be millions of pea sized lumps, highlighted in the low sun. There were so many pocks piled upon the body (it was hard to tell the gender) that not a patch of smooth skin remained. All along the arms great swathes of them had popped, oozing blood and puss upon the paper-bark.
"Smallpox," Johnny said, “he's sick. not well.”
"Mindi moeity great snake," Binjie insisted, using his arms to indicate a great thick body undulating through the air, “dust mischief from sky.” He stippled his fingers over his body.
"Mindi must be a dreaming spirit," said Johnny turning to the other two. “See what I mean? Tragically ignorant.”
One of the men moved forward laughing, pointing out Caesar's half-bald Pelican. Caesar found it plucked from his hands, and with thoughts of smallpox on his mind stepped back to let the man throw the bird unceremoniously upon the fire.
"Sleep here? Eat here?" said Johnny.
Binjie looked at Johnny as if he were simple.
"Yes," he said, approaching with a curious look on his face, “maybe.”
Binjie touched Johnny on the shoulder, who immediately acted as if there was a spider there, spinning this way and that as the children laughed at the spectacle.
"Your carbine," Mary said “he wants your gun.”
"What? This?" he removed the short rifle and handed it to Binjie to look at.
"Powder?" said Binjie. “Lead?”
Johnny shrugged. They still had Mary's rifles and Caesar's ever growing collection of pistols, and besides, the carbine had belonged to a trooper.
"Only if you promise you'll use it on the troopers," said Johnny, not expecting any understanding.
"No troopers," replied Binjie. “Squatter man. Trooper not so bad as him.”
"This gun for shooting squatters?" asked Mary, giving Johnny a significant look.
Binjie looked at her and smiled, putting a finger to his lips.
"Red man sulky for you. You come up along – nuringian, dhahung toonee" he lowered his voice pointing from him to the three outsiders, “keep silence.”
Johnny shrugged. None of the other Aboriginal men seemed to have understood Binjie's language, either.
"He's got us by the knackers," said Johnny, finally.
That night they ate like Kings. For all three it was probably the most satisfying meal they'd had since their respective escapes. The Pelican was delicious, and although the meat was a little tough, the meal was accompanied by all sorts of bush vegetables, roots, nuts and berries. Even Caesar had to concede that it beat the plain old roast the late Mr Lynch had provided them with.
Through the night they learned that Binjie was not from this tribe but had travelled down through the blue mountains from up north. Many of the Woiwurong men could not understand the words Binjie spoke, and although the dialect had its similarities, much still needed to be acted out, or simply substituted with a smile and a nod. They also discovered that it was not the troopers that the clan feared most, but the farmers. It was they who had refused to share the land and who took gifts without returning favour. They had also been telling tales of the clans and their people. Binjie's own clan had been completely wiped out by the selectors, and although Governor Gipps seemed to be doing everything in his power to offer protection, the clans were confused as to mechanics of colonial rule and ownership.
The sick man stayed by the fire all night, and so did Johnny and Caesar; getting drunk with some of the men, while Mary retreated all the way back to the road to sleep in the dray. She was glad to get some time to herself and was feeling a little annoyed at the diversion Johnny had insisted upon. It was, however, true that they were ultimately at the mercy of the natives, especially this Binjie character who seemed to know more than was good for him.
The next morning Mary brought a billy-can into camp and made tea and damper mixed with sugar for the children. It satisfied something inside of her to see them happy – as if something empty had been refilled, if only a little. It somehow gave her dried up eyes some fresh air with which to view the future. This was more than Johnny and Caesar could say. Their cherry-red eyes looked bloated and crusty from a hard night of drinking, and Mary hoped they had not meddled with the infectious body in any sentimental grog-induced stupor.
When time came to leave, Johnny insisted on staying behind to chat with Binjie as if they had all the time in the world, so that Mary ended up walking off on her own to ready the horses. Caesar, having long since slunk back to the dray, continued to sleep off his best attempt at denying the blackskins their chance to savour Johnny's gift of grog they had all shared in.
"See you round," called back Johnny to the camp with a certain air of romance as he looked about the lush surroundings.
"Bye-bye yabba man" said Binjie.
"Yabba? Me?" said Johnny, feeling as though he had been bestowed some greatly significant title.
"Upway word. Down here say yarra."
"Like the river?" Johnny made rivery shapes with his arms, much to Binjie's confusion.
"Means speaking. SPEAKING. Yabba, yabba all the time."
By the dew-smothered fire Johnny became aware of the moaning coming from the pox ridden man. An old lady was feeding him water from a large bark vessel. When he had had his fill she threw the rest upon the sizzling flames. Johnny looked back to Binjie and the carbine.
Two days later, Caesar's strung-out head wobbled against the floor of the dray. The road had been steadily becoming rougher and rougher. Johnny had no idea where they were and suspected that if the horses died they'd be done for. Caesar, having run out of grog, was now more useless than when he had been steadily drunk.
"Nearly there now, boys," Mary told them.
"What a dreary landscape," replied Johnny, struggling to keep his eyes open through the glare and sheer boredom. “All this quartz, dust, skeletons and spindly pathetic scrub.”
"So where are these riches you promised us would be buried out here?" groaned Caesar from somewhere behind.
The cart stopped. Johnny opened his eyes. He could hear water nearby but saw nothing more than a dried up old river bead, its high banks on either side forming a shallow rift. Mary was nowhere to be seen. He hopped from the cart to stamp the life back into his feet. Caesar was in a similar condition, crouched at the back of the cart to stretch his back and to wonder where the hell they were.
"This way," came Mary's voice.
They saw her standing upon the lip of one of the banks. Begrudgingly they hobbled up the ant infested slope. From the relatively high vantage point the landscape unpacked itself before them. Further down along the embankment to where the dead river had once flowed, ambled a narrow stream with banks of sandy clay held together with the roots of spindly gums.
"That's the Campaspe," said Mary pointing at the river.
Upon the flat, on the other side of the lip of their perpendicular dry-river bed, were clumps of tough grass. Mary skipped down, seized a tuft and yanked up a clod.
"Mud and a clod of grass? Is this some sort of joke?" said Johnny.
Mary waddled back up the slope, holding the clod high before her as if it were the gorgons head.
"Watch," she said, smashing the clod to bits on the earth.
"What are you –" began Caesar.
"Shut up," she snapped, searching through the debris. “Now this one ...” She prodded a lumpy chunk of something with her finger. It was about the size of a peanut. “Look. Can't you see?”
Swiping the dirt away with her finger tip, a dull yellow hue emerged.
"Is that ... It is ... It's Gold," said Johnny simply. “It's gold – look gold.”
"In all these clods," said Mary, circling around, fists clenched with euphoria. “In this mud.” She plunged her hand in the earth, “in the river, under all these roots. Virgin, alluvial, untouched.”
But the two men looked in a state of shock. Caesar was holding the nugget Mary had conjured from the earth, and Johnny was taking little rushing steps this way and that, but neither of them had heard a word she'd said. Well, a part of them had. But it was not the part where reason lay.
"Now listen up. LISTEN TO ME," barked Mary with more than a hint of urgency. “If word of this gets out – to the public at large – this topsoil will be stripped bare in less than a week. Then the miners will start up.”
"What are you talking about? What miners?" said Caesar. “There's no one here but us – no one here for –”
"This is dynamite here, d'you understand me Caesar? Johnny?"
And now they listened with slack jaws and vacant brows.
"If word of this gets out there'll be a gold rush on and all our prospects will dry up in a puff."
"How did you find this?" began Johnny. “How could you know? Who else knows about this?”
Mary pushed him away.
"I heard stories first –" she began
"Where? From whom? How did you know?"
"Let her speak –"
"My hands are shaking – look Johnny." Caesar held his hands before him.
Mary smiled.
"Trust me boys, you need to relax. I can see it in the both of you already – the fever. You'll forget about eating, you'll forget about manners; the whole world will disappear, but youmust remember," Mary was pleading now, desperately trying to reach the two bursting men. “It's not going anywhere. We don't need to rush. We need to be smart.”
Johnny and Caesar looked at her as if she had come from another world.
"Listen to what I'm saying."
CHAPTER TWELVE - THE LONG, THE SHORT, AND THE TALL
Nestled upon a trembling hand, that first nugget sat heavy and still. Mary had been trying to get a fire built and was expecting the men to do their bit around camp, but there was simply nothing doing. The gold had frozen them simple. Johnny and Caesar could only sit there with an outraged kind of shock toward the thing, occasionally rubbing their stubbles, occasionally looking to one another for guidance. Every now and then they'd remember themselves and make to get some firewood and feed the horses, but then the light would snag upon stone with a golden flash and the two men would trail off and float like two startled wallabies, halfway through whatever it was they were doing.
"Are you lighting a fire?" Johnny said with angry eyes as Mary struck a match. “The smoke ...” He had a desperate look to his face that made Mary humour him without hesitation.
Caesar was no better. The skin on his palms had already started to peel (from all his manic hand wringing) and his head would snap up and around with every creak from bough or branch. With another of these paranoid bouts of angst, Caesar leapt upon the lip of the old river bank to scan the bush for movement.
"We'd have to be pretty lucky to meet anyone out here," called Mary up to him. “Better off keeping out of sight down here, don't you reckon?”
Caesar ducked down and came creeping back.
"You're right," he said while Mary worked some dough with the Campaspe water she'd collected.
"How can you eat?" snapped Johnny suddenly.
"True, there's work to be done," Mary replied, “but you need energy to work. You don't eat, you'll miss things out. Get sloppy. Go crazy,” she laughed. “Get greedy.”
"I don't know about you, but I'm keeping everything I find," said Johnny. “Sharing be damned.”
"That's not the way it's going to work."
"I don't believe you," said Johnny. “Of course that's the way it's going to work.”
"Nuggets come in different sizes," began Mary. “Some people strike it rich, some don't at all and skill has little to do with it. If we're going to work as a team to maximize our individual profits then I'm afraid sharing is the only way to go. Otherwise there'll be blood mixed in with this sand and no mistake.”
After a fashion Johnny seemed to see reason in this.
"Yes – we pool our finds and divvy them up. Good thinking."
"We'll draw up a contract," said Mary. “Are you honourable men?”
"I am," said Johnny, glancing at Caesar with earnest discomfort.
"Of course I am," said Caesar, sitting down to wring out his hands some more. “Of course I am.”
Mary looked to the two men as she worked the dough through her hands for their dinner. It wouldn't be long till the sun was set, and they needed their sleep and their bellies full for the work that was to come the next day.
"Scrabbling around in the mud won't get you very far very quickly," she began. “I'll show you boys how it's done soon enough. We'll be methodical. It's too much work following seams; this whole area is virgin alluvial –”
"You sure you know what you're talking about?" said Johnny, reacting to the words that sounded so odd coming from a woman.
"I was just coming to that," she said. “Before my work on Campaspe station, before my son, or Parramatta, I had a husband.”
"So youwere married," said Caesar.
"It was my husband who received the sentence of transport. It was for him that I came over the sea." Rolling the dough between her hands she let gravity do its work to stretch a long snake form to the ground. “Up to that point we'd been living in Edinburgh, for a short time, after having made our fortune in the Georgia gold rush of twenty-eight. My husband, Frank, had been an architect, but he was also an amateur geologist when I met him in America – so of course we cleaned up early on. He knew where to look and we panned and sieved our way to an early fortune.”
Taking a long thin stick she wrapped the dough all the way down into a helix before jamming the naked end into the earth next to the fire. Johnny and Caesar remained sitting with their backs straight and their legs tucked like children hearing a brand new story.
"I don't think you boys realize how much of a curse you're standing upon right now, but I can see it in your eyes, your hands and your pale complexions that it's already got you. Maybe you'll learn something from what I've to say, but most likely you won't."
"You know the funny thing?" said Johnny. “I've never been a materialist, but there's something about it. Some demon magic.”
Caesar remained silent to hear Mary's story.
"Just make sure you eat your three meals a day. It drives men to overstretch themselves. Humpty-morning melancholy can turn into savage murder on the gold fields. But, god help us, we won't have to deal in any of that. As far as I know, only a handful of souls have ever stumbled upon this secret and all the ones I heard about in Parramatta were from around Sydney, or the Blue mountains to the east of here. But it's a safe bet this state of silent affairs won't last long. It'll only take a few weeks to comb this area and by then we'll have more than we'll ever need. When I find this spot ... well ... I'll get to that."
"So what happened after California?" said Caesar.
"A life of ease and plenty. It was wonderful. A lot of folks we knew lost everything in speculation, so we decided to just sit on it. It would have been enough to get us through our lives to a ripe old age in comfort within our means and still have some left over for –" a painful glint appeared in her eyes, “– to have some left over. So that's what we did. We bought a nice little cottage and Frank began working freelance.”
Unconsciously, Mary had rolled the dough too much. It snapped, falling with a thump back into the pan of raw material.
"It's not so easy making your own way in the world without employment. Freelancing put Frank in a constant state of wanting, but it was what he loved doing. For money or fortune, or not, Frank lived to work. When you're alone in a room with naught but a drafting board, your mind and the bottle ... Well you can guess where it went. I tried to convince him to employ an apprentice – so as to give him something to care for – but all he could say was that teaching was for those who had failed in their fields. I knew this was rubbish, but with a head full of rum it's easy to make a bent draft of the world. It was around this time I suspected him of being unfaithful to me. It was part of the reason I had insisted he take an apprentice; to have someone in the study with him who actually had any business in being there. I guess a large part of it was my own fault in this respect. You see it was a cottage, but it was two stories crammed to the brim full of all the bits and bobs we'd picked up in our travels. There's few things in this world I can't stand more than housework." She jammed the second damper-stick into the earth.
Johnny and Caesar said nothing.
"Yes, well ... We could afford it, so I indulged. I never asked for much. It was he who controlled the finances, so he granted me the luxury of a housekeeper. She was a quiet and hard working, yet brooding character with a look to her that I can see now was the kind of thing that gives men the impression is begging to be tamed."
"Ha!" laughed Johnny before thinking. He had been looking at Mary, but now he turned away, nugget in his fist, to kick the earth as his face heated.
"The troubles really began when I detected the alcohol on her breath. Of course I complained to Frank, but he dismissed it at once out of hand. He said that booze helped some people to work through the hard times and gave me the impression he thought I was bludging while him and her slaved away. Of course he was doing nothing of the sort and neither – up to a point – was she. But we had a son and a fortune I felt rightfully entitled to. I'd done my share of the work, so I gritted my teeth and did what I could to put it from my mind."
Johnny met Mary's eyes again. Still kicking the earth he said:
"There's no woman who should have to put up with that. If I were you I'd have legged it."
"Is that a fact?" she said.
"Well you ended up at Parramatta either way," said Johnny.
A helpless, almost pathetic nature had overtaken him. Mary laughed.
"That came later and for other reasons. Loyalty is not something you learn from prison. Allegiances, yes. But loyalty? Frank and I had something great. All men have drunken lust."
"All men have lust," said Caesar, poking Johnny with a piece of kindling.
Johnny reacted by snatching it away and breaking it over his leg and adding it to the heap despite Caesar's soft laughter.
"I was willing to forgive him, so I confronted him one day. I told him I had seen his lingering eyes, and heard his tipsy flirtations. Although he couldn't bring himself to respond to my concerns, I could see it in his eyes that he felt conflicted on the whole. Shortly after that he promised to give up his drinking and to take on an apprentice. There was just one little problem."
"The housemaid," said Caesar.
"She was a jealous old bitch. I'm sure she had it in mind to replace me with herself and I can't exactly blame her. Even after having come upon our fortune I still felt the feelings of my previous class; those old friends, of desperation and downwards pressure were constantly conspiring to send me straight back to where I had come from. Frank and I had travelled to California on a loan – on rumours I myself had heard in my previous employ as a maid – so naturally I still could feel a certain level of empathy for this girl and of her aspirations to rise. The least I could do would be to at least help her keep her head above water."
"A noble thing to do," said Caesar.
"On the contrary, I often feel we should have sacked her on the spot – both for her own goodand ours. The best intentions and laid down plans and all the rest of it ... Satisfying the conscience can be a trap in and of itself. Suffice to say that within a year she had Frank up for transport."
"How'd she manage that?" asked Caesar.
"Easy to frame new money," answered Johnny. “The law can't stand it.”
"Aye. This woman seemed to have contacts deep within the criminal world. At first it began with stolen items finding their ways into my good husband's coat pockets. This graduated all the way to an American man coming forward claiming to have been an old business associate of Frank's who had been done wrong in his business dealings. He claimed – and indeed had paper records – to have had a good portion of money embezzled by Frank and so now was demanding his share."
The two convicts swore in slow unison.
"The allegations didn't stand, but this business went on for many months and before long another charge of theft was filed. It all became too much. He was sent to Australia and I was left to look after our son and our dwindling finances on my own."
A silence descended upon the camp. Even the crickets seemed to have respectfully stopped chirping.
"That's the problem with this kind of fortune," said Mary, “easier to earn, harder to own. Have any of you given any thought to how you will prove the gold is yours without sparking a rush? How you will exchange it for local tender? If you boys intend on being successful in this endeavour then it will be what happens later, that will determine your ability to see any material exchanged for your loot.”
"I expect a Jeweller could be bribed, could he not?" suggested Johnny.
"When I was in Paramatta, later on, I heard of such a rumour – of a shepherd named McGregor. Story goes he'd occasionally turn up in Sydney with a nugget, visit the Jeweller, then vanish before anyone could question him. God knows what happened to him. These kind of rumours only survive in the prison system, you see. Who, after all, would believe a convict? Likewise, many of Macquarie's over-lander convicts that came over the blue mountains, turned up on the other side with golden nuggets mysteriously upon their persons; although this was all hushed up. What is a jailer, a warden, a trooper, or a governor to do when he finds gold upon the persons of a convict? What is he to expect? Whom is he to favour?"
"I never heard anything like that in Van Diemen's Land," said Johnny.
"You wouldn't. These rumours only survived on the mainland and all parties in question would either go missing, or mysteriously wind up having memory problems. God forbid if anyone caught you asking questions."
"What misfortune," enquired Johnny, “befell you to end up in the women’s prison in Sydney?”
"It was the McHutchens women – the maid – and the American man I later learned was also named McHutchens. After visiting my husband at Hobart, when I later returned to Sydney a letter was waiting for me at the immigration office. It had apparently arrived on the very boat I took to Sydney in the first place. I later worked out that it must have been posted the same day I embarked for Hobart with the knowledge of my intentions to visit Frank."
"The letter stated that they had taken up residence in our house and had seized all of our assets by law and that I myself would find justice awaiting me at Sydney. A moment later I found iron on my wrists –" Mary's voice cracked. “It was only last year that I was told I could stand for labour selection. I was chosen along with eight other convicts to accompany an overland haul to settle a station in districts not far from this spot.”
"Campaspe run," said Johnny.
"On crossing the Blue Mountains I was reminded of the landscape of California. The quarts, the broken landscape – even the climate. It was only then that the rumours came to the surface of my memory, and my heart leapt with the possibility of a second chance. It was almost as if it was meant to happen – as if God himself had given me something."
She jammed the last of the dampers into the earth. Their shadows had stretched themselves long, between the banks of the ancient tributary entrance to the Campaspe.
"After I heard of my Husband's death, this possibility evaporated. What a cruel turn."
"The station you were on," said Johnny, “what could they have gotten out of this parched landscape?”
"Believe me, it was better. The lands up towards Mount Alexander are still some of the best for running sheep. Granted this last year has been a struggle with the drought, but it'll get better. It always does."
"When I was in the lock up," said Johnny, “a man named Hutton was trying to bail you out.”
"Aye. That was the man I worked for. He was a good man, but weak. The end came for him when the natives over the river took a couple of the shepherds who were interfering with their women. It's funny – they all treated us prisoners like ladies, but the blackskins? A wicked brew of contempt and pity makes men act towards them as if they were some other species. Eventually Hutton lead a retribution attack. He meant to exterminate the lot of them, but he was too cowardly to face the heat and sold the station only a few months ago, which is when I was to go back to Paramatta."
"What about this?" said Johnny, shaking the nugget in his fist.
"All the time I had been working here I'd slip off to the creek to bathe. All the men were so pompously propitious toward me that I was never followed. On my long horseback expeditions down the Campaspe and up the Loddon I found more gold than I could carry. Buried most of it. The rest I melted into faux sovereigns as best I could, in preparation for the time when I'd make my escape. The massacre at Campaspe and Hutton's blood ridden retreat to Melbourne, took me by surprise. I had not planned that far ahead, but when the time came I had little choice but to escape into Melbourne and to bribe my way back home."
She struggled to spark the match, holding her tongue until a flame made its home in the bird's nest of tinder.
"To have justice on my own terms ... As you know, it was not meant to be."
"Something has been worrying me just now," said Caesar, “Does Morgan know about any of this? These riches?”
"Morgan is the escape plan for me – and for you if you boys want it that way. I gave him the impression I had forged my fortune and that he would have a cut and my hand in marriage in return for his investment."
"Do you love him?" said Johnny.
"He loves me," she said. “Isn't that all that matters with men?”
"You've us all figured out," grinned Caesar.
"Of course there's nothing to stop you two from going it alone, but all the complications and pitfalls ... I've been through them all multiple times and trust me when I say this: Picking the stuff fresh off the ground is the easy part."
Mary disappeared in the direction of the river to wash her hands, leaving Caesar and Johnny to their thoughts. Neither man spoke to one another as the truth of the matter still struggled to settle in.
For Johnny the plan had been to suck money out ofher, but instead, it seemed she sought to improve her profits by having two more hands to find the lucky strike. It was more than he had bargained for. He looked over to Caesar who has stoking the fire, lost in his own thoughts. It had been a mistake to save the nigger, he saw that now. A lapse of pig headed good will. It wasn't that he wouldn't do it again, just that now that he thought of it, Caesar was one of the least trustworthy people he had ever met. Although hehad always made it clear when he was going to take what he wanted.
Caesar caught his eye and held it.
"You boys ought to start cooking up your damper," came Mary's voice from the fire as she walked to the dray. “Better to think things through on a full stomach.”
They took her advice. Johnny repeated to himself out loud how amazing it all was while Caesar warmed his hands and looked up to those first stars peeking out from the velvet-blue sky. They couldn't help but smile as the damper turned in the flames of the fire.
When Mary returned she had a sheet of parchment, a pen and a pot of ink. In awkward curls of text she composed a contract before signing her own name. Marking two places for Johnny and Caesar to do the same she pushed the sheet towards the two men and offered up the pen.
"You'll see that it's good?" said Caesar.
Johnny felt a pang of pity for the negro, who would not be able to read the simple contract.
After a time, apparently satisfied, Johnny signed.
"Just mark with an X. Mary and I will be witness."
So Caesar marked the spot.
"I am your humble apprentice," he said to Mary with a grin.
"Show us how to get the gold," said Johnny.
"As I said – getting it is the easy part."