‘He must’ve had the gift of the gab.’
‘Sure he did. He was Irish.’
Somebody had bought another round and I found myself with a full glass in my hand again.
‘Did you ever meet McIlroy?’ I asked. ‘I was told he came from Kalgoorlie.’
But Lenny shook his head. ‘I was just a kid at the time. My father knew him ‘cos he worked at the Great Boulder. I remember him saying he always reckoned McIlroy would come to a sticky end - either that or he’d finish up a millionaire. A clerk, I think, he said, but a boss’s man with a tongue that could turn iron pyrites into gold. Come to think of it, I did see him once - it was up at the mine and my Dad pointed him out to me getting into a flash English car. There’s a man, he said, makes more money in a day playing the market than I make working my guts out underground in a whole year. But it was the car I was interested in — an MG sports it was, all white with a long bonnet and big headlights. Bloody silly, a car like that in Kal, but no doubt it served its purpose. He was a show-off and clever as a monkey.’
I had a picture to show the sort of man McIlroy was, but nothing about the copper deposit that had sent him to his death. AH Lenny could tell me was what he’d read in the Kalgoorlie Miner, and that was pretty vague, for he was only twelve years old at the time. ‘It was the abos found the truck. They’d been walkabout - some corroboree - and by the time the police got wind of it the tracks were all obliterated. Nothing to show where he’d been or whether he’d found his Monster.’
I asked him if there’d been anything in the papers about McIlroy having an aborigine with him on the expedition, but he didn’t know. ‘All I remember for sure is that the truck’s back axle was broken, and that’s only because I was getting interested in cars then. I don’t recall anything about an abo.’
‘Then what’s Walli talking about?’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘yuh’re new out here, ain’t yuh, same as Phil. Well, put yourself in Walli’s place, half Australia fossicking around for minerals and this old story every bit as good as Lasseter’s Reef. It’s worth a few beers every time a stranger comes into the bar here and that’s all he cares. He’s short of money and he likes his booze, see. Nothing else to it. That’s what I keep telling Phil - but there you are -‘ He shrugged and downed the rest of his beer.
I looked around for Westrop, but he was no longer beside me, and when I went to order another round, I saw him in the main bar with Walli.
Drinking there with the Grafton boys, I was able to confirm what Andie had told me, that Westrop had only been at the tin mine a matter of two months and he’d come down from Darwin, straight out of hospital after his discharge, looking for a job. He knew nothing about mining, but he’d been a sapper and could drive bulldozers. ‘It’s open cast mining, see.’
A soldier, straight out of Vietnam with no knowledge of mining; it seemed odd that he should be so interested in Wolli. And that night visit to Golden Soak. ‘Are you sure he wasn’t a prospector before he joined the Army?’
They laughed at that. ‘I tell yer, he don’t know a dam’ thing about mining.’
‘But he’s got books. He’s learning.’
‘Yuh don’t learn about mining from books.’
‘But you can learn how to recognize a mountain of copper when you see one.’ I said.
‘Mcllroy’s Monster!’
They were all laughing, their faces glistening in the lights. Somebody thrust another can of beer into my hand.
‘When did he become interested in McIlroy?’ I asked.
They didn’t know. It was just a joke to them. And then Lenny said quietly, ‘Funny thing, yuh asking that. He was interested in McIlroy right from the word go. Come to think of it, he knew about Wolli, too.’
‘And he came here immediately he was discharged?’
‘Yep.’ The brown eyes in the mummified face were suddenly full of curiosity. ‘Straight out of hospital.’
‘Where’s he from originally, d’you know?’
‘Sydney, so he says. Got his family there.’
‘He’s married then?’
‘Wife an’ two kids. The brown eyes staring at me and both of us thinking the same thing. ‘Says he’s come to work here so as he can grab himself enough to buy a house and a small business.’ But I can see Lenny didn’t believe that any more than I did. ‘He’s a rum’un, Phil is.’
‘D’you believe this story of Wolli’s?’ I asked him.
”Bout his father being with McIlroy?’ He shook his head. ‘I dunno. Makes sense to take an abo along if you’re headed beyond Disappointment. It’s all desert there, or as near as makes no odds.’
‘And what about Golden Soak?’ I asked. ‘Did you know he and Wolli broke into the mine last night?’
‘He was off sick yesterday. How would he get down to the Garrety place?’
‘He was driving a Toyota.’
‘The only person that owns a Toyota around here is Prophecy.’ He glanced quickly round the room, then shook his head. ‘Bloody fool!’ he muttered. ‘That mine’s dangerous.’
‘What was he after?’
He gave me a toothless grin. ‘What’s any bloke after having a look at a derelict mine?’
‘Has he got enough money to buy it?’
”Course not. All he’s got is his pension and whatever they give ‘im for his leg when he got his discharge. Even a dud mine like Golden Soak’s worth more’n that these days.’
‘Then what was he doing there?’
A hand gripped me by the shoulder and I spun round to find Westrop there, the sweat damp on his face and his eyes blazing. ‘ Yuh want to ask questions about me, ask them to my face. Got it?’ He’d had a lot of beer by then. So had I. We all had.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘What was it you were looking for last night?’
‘Yuh really wanter know?’ His voice was loud and truculent.
I was looking for McIlroy.’ He laughed and the others laughed with him. But facing him as I was, I knew he wasn’t being funny. He was deadly serious. ‘Yuh go back to your pal Garrety — tell ‘im wot I said. He’ll laugh.’ His face was close to mine, his eyes reflecting an emotion I didn’t understand and his body trembling so that I could feel it through the hand still gripping my shoulder. ‘He’ll laugh himself sick.’ The pressure of the hand increased and suddenly he was shaking me. ‘Yuh go back there and tell’ im. See wot he says.‘And he was shouting at me, ‘Yuh Pommies - yuh’ve got a nerve you bastards have. Yuh don’t give a bugger for this country, but soon as we start striking it rich, then yuh’re out here like a swarm of locusts.’ His fist was bunched, the sweat on his face shining, and I stood there, waiting, feeling isolated. And then suddenly his mood changed and he let go of me. ‘Yuh mind your business, I’ll mind mine.’ He was relaxed now, smiling and clapping me on the shoulder, and then he turned and ordered another round.
They left shortly afterwards, and I went with them, glad of the chance of a lift to Lynn Peak. They were going there for a meal. At least that’s what they said, and I was sucker enough to believe them, anxious now to be on my way to Kalgoorlie.
TWO
There were no trees where they dumped me, just the dark outline of low hills and stars brilliant in the still, arid air. There was a big anthill close by - magnetic ants, the pointed side facing north. I sat down with my back against it, still hearing their drunken laughter as they dropped me over the side on to the edge of the Highway and Westrop saying, ‘Just keep going south an’ you’ll arrive at Kalgoorlie an’ don’t let me set eyes on yuh again.’ Somebody - Lenny, I think - had had the decency to dump my suitcase on the gravel beside me, and then the Chev roared off up the side track to Grafton Downs, the red tail lights and their laughter fading in the distance until they were lost behind the dark shoulder of a hill and I was alone with only the silence of the night for company.
I closed my eyes, a little sobered now, but still feeling sore at being made to look such a fool, cursing all Australians for their
crude sense of humour. And thinking about it there in the stillness, remembering the violence in Westrop’s voice, the trembling of his hand on my shoulder, I wasn’t at all sure he had meant it as a joke. More like a warning, it seemed.
I was still thinking about that, my back against the hard-baked surface of the anthill, when the lights of a vehicle appeared over a rise, coming from the direction of Nullagine. It was already slowing down, the headlights catching me in their glare as I stood waiting beside the road. It was a Toyota and when it stopped Prophecy put her head out of the window. ‘I came into the bar just as you were driving off with those jokers. Thought I’d better come and pick you up.’ She was grinning as though she, too, saw the humour of it.
Thanks,’ I said and retrieved my suitcase. Then, as I got in beside her, she said, ‘I got a full tank.’ She was watching me, her eyes gleaming black in the dashboard light. ‘Yuh ever been down Golden Soak?’
I shook my head.
‘Well, now’s your chance to have a dekko before Phil Westrop. After all the questions you bin asking, he’ll be down there at the weekend for sure and Ed’ll have a fight on his hands if he tries to run him off the property again.’
I didn’t know whether it was the thought that Ed Garrety might get hurt or whether it was simply that Prophecy infected me with her own curiosity, but I said okay and we started driving south. ‘How do you think I’m going to get down the shaft?’ I asked. But she had rope, torches, a miner’s helmet, everything we’d need in the back. She always carried them, she said. And then we were talking about Westrop and what it was he was after. But it seemed she knew no more than I did. ‘Looking for McIlroy,’ she said. ‘That’s a bloody odd thing for him to say.’ But she’d no idea why he’d said it and the noise and the heat of the truck made talking very tiring. With all the beer I’d drunk, my head began to nod and soon I was asleep. Even the jolts as we crossed the creek beds didn’t waken me.
It was almost two when we reached the turn-off to Jarra Jarra and at Prophecy’s suggestion I took over the driving. I had to concentrate then, for in places the track was difficult to follow and in the hill country there were the gullies to watch for. It was still dark when we came to the paddock fence and I felt like a thief in the night coming back to Jarra Jarra uninvited in a borrowed truck with a woman like Prophecy lolling in a whisky-loaded daze in the seat beside me. I saw the outline of The Governor humped against the stars, and then I had crossed the Mt Newman track and was on to the back trail that led down to Golden Soak.
The first pale light of dawn was seeping into the sky behind us as I turned the red outcrop and saw the chimney thin as a pencil above the rusted mine buildings. I was driving without lights then, feeling my way, with Prophecy awake and sitting bolt upright. I stopped by the mine office, switched the engine off and got out. There was no wind, everything still and very quiet. The dawn was brightening, a thin line to the east, and I stood there on the threshold of the day, listening. Prophecy joined me, a hag in the pallid light, her eyes gummed and her blown hairy dry as furze. No jingle of a bit, no exhaust blown whisper of the engine - no sound except the soundless promise of heat to come. ‘Yuh expecting somebody?’ Prophecy asked.
‘No.’ The gully closed around us. Dark now, no sign of the dawn and the place eerie in the headlights, a gaping mouth with quartz like ivory molars showing through the earth’s red gums. I reached the old mine workings, and where they’d once loaded the tip trucks, I was able to back and turn so that the Toyota faced downhill. I switched off the engine and sat there for a moment, listening.
‘Wot’s s’matter - scared?’
Her face was a dark blur, her voice a little sharper.
‘Perhaps,’ I said, thinking of Ed Garrety and his father and the dead miners. Bad spirits all longa that mine. A cold shiver ran through me, though it was hot as an oven here with the day’s heat trapped by the rocks. Hard gnarled fingers touched my bare arms. ‘Yuh goin’ down?’
‘That was the idea.’
I saw the dark shape of her head nod. ‘Just be careful, that’s all.’ The fingers were stroking my arm, a caressing touch. ‘Ed’s never been down. He told me that once. Nobody’s been down since it was closed.’
She took her hand away and reached into the back, passing to me the miner’s helmet with its lamp and the battery attached to a belt. She had a geological hammer, too, and a haversack for rock samples. We also took a coil of nylon rope with us and a powerful hand torch. Then, as we started up, picking our way round the black gaping holes of the early workings, she gave me the lay-out of the mine as near as she could remember it from listening to old-timers in the bar. There were four levels at approximately one hundred feet intervals, the lowest, at four hundred feet, being the one that had been flooded following the cave-in. The reef itself more or less followed the fault line that had formed the gully. It was between four and eight feet wide and went down at a fairly steep angle, about 40° she thought. At the eastern end it petered out. At the western end it was badly faulted, and it was at this end that the cave-in had occurred.
‘And nobody’s been down since then?’
‘Not as far’s I know.’ She was short of breath now, her voice wheezing.
‘Too dangerous, is that it?’
She turned her head and looked at me. ‘Want to go back?’
‘What about the ladders? There are ladders in the main shaft, aren’t there?’
‘That’s how the survivors got out.’
‘But that was thirty years ago. They’ll all be rotten by now.’
‘Wood don’t rot so easy in this climate.’
We reached the rock outcrops and the beam of the torch picked out the heavy boarding of the door, new screws gleaming bright against the rusted metal of the bolt. The piece of timber Garrety had jammed across the entrance the previous night lay discarded on the ground. Some time during the day he had been back and secured the door. But with a screwdriver from the truck’s tool kit it was a simple job to release the bolt, and then we were inside the mountain, walking along the adit tunnel, which was just wide enough to take the tip trucks. The walls were rock, a brownish red colour and soft enough to show the marks of the miners’ picks. Red dust covered the tramlines scuffed by the feet of last night’s intruders, the air warm and slightly humid, a musty smell.
I counted 217 paces before the adit opened out into a man-made cavern with a gaping hole in the floor and timber supports for the hoist. A bucket hung there on rusted wires that ran over a pulley and down to the drum of a coal-burning steam engine with its chimney running up into the roof. It was all very primitive and entirely derelict.
Prophecy shone the torch down into the shaft, the two of us hanging on to the baulks of timber and peering into the depths. The shaft went straight down, a rope ladder falling to the staging of the first level, then wooden ladders continuing on down to what looked like the gleam of water at the bottom. Nothing seemed to have changed since the mine had been abandoned, except for that rope ladder secured to one of the timbers of the hoist. The other ladders seemed all right. It was only this first section that had gone and I wondered about that as Prophecy began to pull the rope ladder up. ‘Seems sound enough,’ she said. ‘Home-made, by the look of it.’
The ladder was formed of two lengths of rope, knotted at intervals to support the slats of wood that formed the rungs. The rope was old, but it was good thick manilla, and it wasn’t frayed or rotten. The slats, too, were sound, though they were of several types of wood. It looked as though it had been made on the station and I was thinking of Ed Garrety going down alone as I lowered it back into the shaft.
‘Yuh’d better tie the nylon round you just in case.’
I could feel the tension growing in me as I put on the helmet and buckled the belt around my waist, easing the lead from the battery up to the back of my neck and switching it on to test. The light from the reflector on my helmet was bright on the rock walls. ‘Battery all right?’ I asked.
She n
odded. ‘One thing Nobby taught me. I always keep it charged.’ She handed me the end of the nylon rope and I tied it round my chest under the armpits. She had already passed the coil round one of the wooden timbers. She knew what she had to do and I slipped the haversack on and tucked the geological hammer into my belt. ‘I’ll be two or three hours at least,’ I said. ‘But I’ll call to you up the shaft. If a whole hour goes by without my calling, then you’d better go for help.’
She nodded, and I ducked under the timbering and lowered myself into the blackness of the hole, feeling with my feet until I had found the first of the slats. I saw the ropes take the strain as my full weight came on the ladder, then I was moving cautiously down it, my face close to the rock and Prophecy paying out the nylon safety rope from above. The ladder hung close against the rock wall of the shaft and I had to kick it out at each step, to get a foothold on the slats. The staging at the first level was still sound and I swung myself into the cavity, slipping out of the nylon rope and using the end of it to secure the ladder to the wooden frame. Then I started along the narrow tunnel.
It was a cross-cut and quite short. In a moment I was in the main gallery and had turned east along the line of the sloping. At this level the technique was crude, large pillars of gold-bearing quartz having been left to support the over-lying rock. It was safe and with proper shoring the pillars could have been mined. After about two hundred yards the pillars became shorter, the reef gradually narrowing to the point where it was no longer workable. I went back then, past the cross-cut to the shaft, the going gradually becoming more difficult as I encountered roof falls. The rock at this western end was badly fractured with areas of definite instability, and the reef came to an abrupt end at a point of major faulting.
I went back to the shaft, called up it that I was okay, and then I took a chance and went scrambling down the sloping itself. Beyond the second level the roof pillars became fewer, the overburden supported by hand-built walls of red rock. The air had got to it, of course. It was quite humid at this depth, with moisture glistening on the walls, and this had helped the process of oxidization.
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