Tarrapaldi

by Wayne T Mathews

  Nathaniel studied the young man in front of him, wondering how much to trust him.

  “I was raised by these people,” Billy said when he saw Nathaniel’s indecision. “My mother died when I was a baby. My father met a woman of the Dharug people, and she came to live with him. She and her family raised me. I have dark skinned brothers and sisters. I don’t have the gifts of a koradji, but I can track a bee to its hive, I know horses and livestock, and I am a warrior of the Dharug people.” Billy unfastened the front of his trousers and exposed his circumcised penis. “Trust me. I have heard the legends of Tunggaree and his daughter, Tarrapaldi. I know you’re not an ordinary man. Tarrapaldi wouldn’t have brought you to her father if you were.”

  Nathaniel closed his eyes. “Oh God, I hope this works over this distance. Tarrapaldi, Tunggaree, can you hear me?”

  “We can hear you, Lad. What’s happening? We heard gunshots.” Tunggaree’s words were as clear in Nathaniel’s head as when he’d only been feet away.

  “We need help. Muchuka’s been clubbed by Newman. And some white guy in trooper’s clothes is spinning me a yarn about being a Dharug warrior,” Nathaniel said. “This is crazy. But Muchuka needs your help quickly.”

  “Where are you?” Tunggaree asked.

  “We’re beside the pool you taught me to swim in.”

  “Where’s Newman?” Tarrapaldi’s words were icy calm, but there was no mistaking her deadly intent.

  “Don’t worry about him, Tarrapaldi. He’s dead. The guy with me, blew his head off. Newman wounded him first though. The guy’s bleeding like a stuck pig from his chest.”

  “All right, Nathaniel,” Tunggaree said, “stay calm. If Muchuka is still breathing and not bleeding, don’t move her. Try to stop the other man’s bleeding. I’m on my way and I’ll be there soon.”

  “He’s on his way,” Nathaniel said to Billy. “He’s told me not to move Muchuka, but to stop your bleeding.”

  “Good enough. Look, will you stow my rod,” Billy said handing his gun to Nathaniel. “My ribs are hurting too much for me to be able to lift my arms. Damn,” he said, opening his buttons and looking inside his shirt, “that was bloody close. Another inch and I’d have been a goner.”

  Nathaniel stowed the ramrod under the barrel as requested. Billy painfully shrugged out of his shirt, rolled it up, and then clamped it against his ribs with his elbow.

  “That should do the trick until the koradji gets here. My horse is over the way.” Billy nodded his head in the direction he’d come in from. “Would you mind going and bringing him over? There’s some supplies in the saddlebags, and it might help the koradji if we boil up some water.

  “Be a bit careful with the horse though. He doesn’t take kindly to being handled by anyone but me,” Billy said when Nathaniel walked off to find him.

  Which was an understatement.

  When Nathaniel untied the reins from the branch they were secured to, and tried to lead him around the tree, Bo reared up squealing, and lashed out with his front feet. Nathaniel dropped the reins and jumped out of the way. But Bo came after him, snapping with wicked teeth until Billy let out a piercing whistle.

  When Bo heard the whistle, he stopped attacking Nathaniel and turned to trot over to his owner.

  “Sorry about that,” Billy said. “He heard the gunshots and when he didn’t see me, he must’ve thought you’d shot me.”

  “Uh huh. You’re full of more dung than a Christmas turkey,” Nathaniel said, taking a wide berth around Bo. “I’ll get a fire started for us. But I don’t care how sore your ribs are. You get the supplies out of the saddle bags yourself.”

  The first Billy or Nathaniel knew that Tunggaree had arrived, was when the tip of his spear pressed firmly, but without breaking the skin, into the side of Billy’s neck.

  “Tell me your name and how you came to be here in the Valley of Wonggaroa,” Tunggaree said in his native language.

  Billy gave his name and calmly talked through the events that had led to him being there. Tunggaree lowered the spear when Billy stopped speaking.

  Muchuka groaned and began to roll herself over. Tunggaree leapt to her side and restrained her. Running his hands over her body, he checked her all over before taking her head in both hands and gently massaging the back of her skull. Muchuka’s eyes opened, she looked across at Newman’s crumpled body and burst into tears when her father leaned down to brush her forehead with his lips.

  “Tarrapaldi,” Tunggaree said, “Look after your sister while I see to Billy’s wound.”

  When she came forward, Nathaniel realized Tarrapaldi had been standing just out of the clearing with a spear ready to hurl.

  Tunggaree removed the rolled up bloody shirt from Billy’s side.

  “This isn’t much,” Tunggaree placed his hands on either side of the gash and applied pressure to close the wound. “If you believe I can heal this, Billy, then it is healed.”

  Billy looked straight ahead, his eyes focused on some distant point. “I have seen this thing done many times. By men of much less skill than the legendary Tunggaree. With your hands on me, I am healed.”

  Tunggaree held the wound closed while it mended. When he took his hands away, there was an angry red welt where the gash had been.

  “Why have you chosen to keep the scar?” Tunggaree said, when he saw the mark.

  “It’ll remind me forever, of the first time I saw Muchuka,” Billy said.

  Caruthers looked across at MacLaughlin. “One shot? Or two do you think?”

  “Hard to say,” MacLaughlin said. “But there’s definitely one gun, and possibly two, out in front of us. Slightly to our left I would say.”

  “Which dovetails nicely with the idea Pike only turned to follow the wild horse’s tracks as a ruse.”

  “Yes, Sir, it does,” MacLaughlin said looking sideways at Caruthers and smiling cynically at the lieutenant taking credit for the idea. “With your permission, Sir. I’d like to order the men into a wide line abreast, and advance carefully.”

  “Perfectly correct, Sergeant. We don’t want to alert the swine with a cloud of dust and the clatter of charging hooves, now do we?”

  “No, Sir, we don’t.”

  Using hand signals, MacLaughlin directed the troop to fan out into a line on either side of him, and to then advance slowly and quietly.

  “Damn, will you look at that.” MacLaughlin gave a fair imitation of a whip-bird’s call to attract the troop’s attention. Then with hand signals, he directed the troop to dismount, secure their horses and move forward under cover to the rim of the valley in front of them.

  “God awful country up this way, and all the good lands to the west of Bathurst, eh Sergeant? Isn’t that what you said?” Caruthers said, crawling up awkwardly to lie beside MacLaughlin with a telescope tucked into his sling.

  “I did say there were pockets of good land up this way, Sir,” MacLaughlin said.

  “Quite obviously this’s a bit more than a pocket. Wouldn’t you say?” Caruthers said, putting the telescope to his eye and sweeping the view in front of them.

  “Yes, Sir. Obviously.” MacLaughlin tried not to grit his teeth. “Bring the glass to the left, Sir. Along the creek. Beside that large mound of rock. I can see people, I think. And definitely a cart and a couple of horses.”

  “Got them.” Caruthers wiggled into a more comfortable position, then grinned wickedly. “Hello, Mr. Pike. Interesting company you’re keeping these days. That’s Johnson walking around down there buck-naked, Sergeant. It seems he’s gone completely native. And one of the blacks is the slut who damaged my arm. I don’t recognize the other two. But who’s this — Good Lord, that’s Newman they’re loading into the cart. The bastards have murdered him.”

  “Are you sure, Sir,” MacLaughlin said. “Let me look.”

  Caruthers shrugged the Sergeant’s hand off the telescope
. “Of course I’m bloody sure, you idiot. The man was my corporal for months. Now keep your hands off the glass while I continue the surveillance.”

  “He was my friend, Sir. I’d like to see what they’ve done to him.”

  “It won’t do either him, or you, any good. — Sergeant, what do you suppose those things are that Johnson is putting into sacks and loading onto the cart?” Caruthers asked.

  “I have absolutely no idea,” MacLaughlin said.

  “They look like smooth river rocks, Sergeant. Why would anyone put rocks in their cart?”

  “Perhaps they’re the magic, sacred stones the black witch doctors use in their ceremonies. If you let me use the glass, I could tell you for sure.”

  “No, it’s not important.” Caruthers snapped the glass closed and looked down into the valley, just to make sure nobody else could see the color of the rocks being put into the sacks. “What is important, is moving the men back and getting them mounted. We’ll back track to where those horse’s tracks are you said Pike wouldn’t follow for long. Then we’ll follow them to the pass that’ll lead us to Mr. Pike and his murdering, traitorous friends,” Caruthers said. “Just like I wanted to when we crossed them.”

  “Of course.” MacLaughlin rolled onto his back, gave a short sharp whistle to attract the men’s attention, and vent his frustration, then with hand signals, directed them back to their horses.

  “Bloody hell.” Billy’s head snapped around, and his eyes focused on the rim where the whistle had come from. He only caught glimpses of a couple of the men retreating back from the edge. But it was enough to know they’d been up there watching.

  “You know who whistled?” Tunggaree asked in his native language.

  “Yes,” Billy said in the same tongue. “It was the sergeant. I didn’t expect him to not follow my tracks.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, youngster. The Goobahs are unpredictable. They don’t think or act like normal people.”

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Nathaniel said, when he saw the conversation with Tunggaree had ended.

  “The troopers have been watching us from the rim of the valley,” Billy said.

  “Damn!” Nathaniel said. “You led them here?”

  “The hell I did,” Billy said. “I left a set of tracks a blind man could follow, but they didn’t do it. When I turned north, they kept coming east. They probably heard the gunshots and snuck up to the rim to see what was happening.”

  “How many of them are there?”

  “Nineteen,” Billy said.

  “Nineteen? Dammit! Why so many?”

  “My guess is the lieutenant has some serious respect for you and Tarrapaldi after the last time you met with him.”

  “What? You mean the lieutenant leading those men is the one who chased us on the river? That can’t be. He’s on the other side of the mountains.”

  “Not any more he’s not. The little turd-burglar was sent out here to replace Lieutenant Harrington. And he’s, Caruthers that is, is angrier about it than a swiped at hornet.”

  “Damn!” Nathaniel looked up at the rim. “If that prick is running the land office, we’re going to have hell and buggery trying to get the grant we want.”

  “Now what the hell are you talking about?” Billy said.

  “I sent a letter to Governor Macquarie,” Nathaniel said, “asking him to meet us two days from now, just west of Richmond. Tunggaree has drawn up a map of the land he wants Macquarie to grant us.”

  “Are you mad?” Billy said. “You’re a runaway convict who attacked, and beat the living daylights out of a bunch of troopers, seriously injured an officer, and is suspected of murdering a corporal. And it’s your word against mine that it was me who killed him. You’re in trouble up to your eyebrows, and you expect the Governor to come to a meeting in the bush and grant you land? Do you think he’ll grant you land in exchange for that gold you’ve been stashing in the cart? You’re mad, fellah m’boy.” Billy backed away a couple of steps. “And not only that, but you’re bloody dangerous. Macquarie will have you skinned alive with a cat, and anybody else who’s around you, if you go showing up with gold. He’s far too interested in building up towns and productive farms, to allow a dirt-bag like you to come along and spoil all his plans. He doesn’t want people to know there’s gold out here.”

  “Exactly right. That’s why we said in our letter, that if he’ll grant us the land, we’ll tell him where the fields are so he can guard them and keep the gold secret,” Nathaniel said.

  “Prove there’s a whole pile of gold out here,” Billy said quietly. “Then don’t tell him where you found it ‘till he grants you the land. Now that’s clever. It’s still a long shot, mind. But I’d be prepared to give a hand if you’ll cut me a piece of the pie.”

  “Cut you a piece of the pie? Hells breath, Billy,” Nathaniel said. “You can have the whole bloody lot if you like. I only want enough to get back to the States. And if I’ve got a sack of gold to take with me so I can complete my studies, and open a law office when I get there, why I’d be happier than a pig in mud. Tunggaree’d be happy to. He’s looking for white studs to mate with his daughters. And being as how you know their language and laws, why I reckon you’d have to be a shoe-in for the job.”

  “You’d leave all this,” Billy swung his arm around to indicate the valley, “for country that’s covered with a foot or two of snow for three to four months of the year? You’re mad. I’ve been down Goulburn way, where you can sometimes see the snow on the mountain tops, and that was too bloody cold for me.”

  “You get used to the cold, Billy,” Nathaniel said. “But I’ll never get used to, or forgive, being put in chains and beaten on the whim of some English officer.”

  Tunggaree walked up leading Muchuka by the arm. “I’m sorry to be interrupting your discussion. But the Goobahs are probably going to be here soon, and we need to leave. Muchuka does not want to travel on the cart with Newman’s body,” Tunggaree said. “Could she ride on your horse, Billy?”

  “What did he say?” Nathaniel asked Billy.

  “He said we have to leave, and he’s asking if the girl can ride my horse.”

  “That wouldn’t be a good idea folks. Only Billy can handle that horse. It tried to kill me when I tried to lead it.”

  “Perhaps I can ride behind Billy, Father. I really don’t want to ride next to John’s body.”

  “Why are we taking his body anyway?” Nathaniel asked. “He’s an English trooper and they’ll be along this way shortly. If we leave him, they’ll have to bury him. And that’ll slow them down a bit.”

  “Because I have a plan that’ll slow them even more.” Tunggaree turned to Billy, reverting to the language the young man understood. “In your talk with Nathaniel. Did he tell you where we’re going?” Tunggaree asked.

  “Yes. And I’d like to come with you if that’s all right,” Billy said.

  “It’ll be dangerous. Baiame has told me people will die before this thing is over.”

  Billy laughed. “I’m a warrior, Tunggaree. I’ll do my best to make sure it’s not one of us.”

  Tunggaree took a firm grip on Billy’s arm. “Right now, Muchuka is suffering from a pain I cannot cure. But perhaps you can. We’ll talk more when this is over.”

  Nathaniel climbed into the cart with Tarrapaldi at the reins. Tunggaree strode over, leaving a stunned Billy to stumble off to his horse.

  Muchuka trudged over to where Billy was tightening the girth strap of his saddle. After murmuring quietly to Bo for a moment or two, Billy swung into the saddle before kicking his left foot free of the stirrup and offering his hand to the quiet girl standing beside him. Muchuka placed her foot in the empty stirrup and holding Billy’s hand, she swung up behind him.

  Tarrapaldi slapped the reins on the rump of the carthorse, and they moved off at a trot along the stream’s b
ank.

  Billy lifted Bo into a canter and went several hundred yards in front of the cart before he reined into a walk. The cart went trotting by, and when it was several hundred yards in front, Billy lifted Bo into a canter until again, he was several hundred yards in front.

  Leap-frogging each other, the group traveled east until the valley walls closed in. In front of them were the jumbled rocks guarding the path that led back along the way Tarrapaldi and Nathaniel had come up only days before.

  Tarrapaldi reined in the horse she was driving. “The tracks too rough on the other side of the tunnel. We’ll have to leave the cart and pack the gold from here.”

  Tunggaree smiled. “Take the cart to the mouth of the tunnel, lass. The troopers will turn back when they find it there.”

  “What?” Tarrapaldi said. “They’ll just push it out of the way.”

  “Not if we whistle the rocks onto it, they won’t”

  Tarrapaldi looked at her father. “Why don’t we wait until the troopers are in the tunnel and whistle the rocks onto them instead?”

  “Because I’m not sure whistling will bring down enough rock,” Tunggaree said. “This way, when they see the wreckage, they’ll think we’re buried and leave us alone.”

  “Will somebody tell me what’s going on?”

  Tarrapaldi slapped the carthorse’s rump with the reins. “It’ll become clear shortly, Nathaniel. Right now you can help us by removing John Newman’s coverings. We’re going to bury him.”

  “Bury him? We haven’t got time for that.”

  “Just do it, Nathaniel. Get his coverings off him.”

  Tarrapaldi stopped the cart just short of the tunnel. Billy swung his leg over Bo’s neck and dismounted, leaving Muchuka sitting behind his saddle. Moving quickly, he unhitched the horse from the cart. Tarrapaldi tied the sacks of gold together in pairs, and hung them over the carthorse’s back before Billy led both horses through the tunnel. Tunggaree studied the rocks, then with Nathaniel’s help, dragged Newman’s naked body to the place he had selected, and the cart to another. Tarrapaldi gathered up Newman’s clothes and using them like a dust cloth, removed any sign of their activity while she followed the group carefully into, and then through, the tunnel.