The Cartographer's Secret

by Téa Cooper

  Letitia gave her stomach a rub and looked around at all the others tucking into their food. ‘What’s for supper?’

  ‘Kangaroo. Do you want the rest of the story?’

  She placed her finger against her lips, eyes sparkling. Long fingers, the nails blunt and practical, a smudge of ink against the quick. Boots that would cost twelve months’ wages, yet her fingers stained. Such a set of contradictions. ‘Kangaroo kept on jumping and jumping, until he jumped right out.’

  ‘And then what happened to the lizard?’ She sat like a child as though captivated by his words.

  ‘Ah, well that’s the rub. He was turned into stone. And there he is.’ He pointed to the rock face silhouetted against the night sky.

  Her face paled.

  ‘Nothing for you to be worrying about. Lizard’s up there reminding us all not to be greedy. You want to ask Olivia to take you up there. You can see forever.’

  ‘How far is forever?’

  ‘All the valleys and the mountains, all the way to the coast. Pretty much …’ The rest of his words disappeared in the discordant screech of the fiddle as the player searched for the right note.

  He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet. They danced again, the singing and swearing and hilarity got louder as the night wore on then they sat again shoulder to shoulder while the moonlight chased the falling stars across the sky until finally she excused herself, declined his invitation to walk her back to the farmhouse and called Oxley.

  ‘Good night, Miss Rawlings.’

  Somewhere above the rock a night bird called.

  She wrapped her arms around her waist. ‘Lettie, call me Lettie,’ she said as she drifted off into the night, her face still turned towards the rock and the dog by her side, where he’d like to be.

  Twelve

  Yellow Rock, 1881

  The late afternoon sun lit the study and dust motes danced in the beam slanting across the polished timber floorboards. Evie settled at the desk, spread the magazine on top of the piles of paper and found a small space to rest her elbows.

  Pa was very taken with his Bushman’s Bible, the new weekly magazine called The Bulletin that he’d arranged to have sent from Sydney. She’d read the odd article or two he’d recommended and recognised the names of many of the contributors. The story of Captain Moonlite and the Wantabadgery bushrangers had held her captive, and she and Pa had laughed over the political sketches, albeit after he’d explained their significance. Although their stance that Australia should be for the white man alone was something she found hard to agree with. What of the original inhabitants? Why couldn’t they all live side by side? Over the years they’d employed many Wonnarua People, they were among some of the best stockmen and drovers in the country and harvest time would be nigh impossible without their contribution. Yellow Rock wouldn’t have thrived without their labour.

  She stared at the date: Saturday, 25th December 1880. Christmas had passed and she and Olivia hadn’t marked it. No picnic on the grass under the spreading angophora, no games, no croquet, no presents exchanged with neighbours. Just a day like any other. She leafed through the magazine from back to front as she always did and midway through a headline caught her attention.

  THE FATE OF LEICHHARDT ONE THOUSAND POUND REWARD

  The proprietors of The Bulletin have much pleasure in announcing that they are prepared to pay the sum of ONE THOUSAND POUNDS for the first conclusive and substantial proof of the place where Ludwig Leichhardt, the great Australian Explorer met his death …

  A reward of one thousand pounds! Her mind spiralled. The government had rewarded Leichhardt with a thousand pounds after his Essington expedition. It was a vast amount of money! Did Pa know about this? Did it have something to do with his meeting with Du Faur? Surely if he had Leichhardt and Classen’s writings they would contain conclusive and substantial proof? Her gaze raced across the page:

  Subject to the following conditions: the information to be clear and unchallengeable. The same to be kept absolutely secret until communicated to and published by the SYDNEY BULLETIN

  All relics and objects recovered and produced in support of the evidence offered to be handed over to the proprietors of The Bulletin, who will undertake to present them to the Australian Museum. The sum of ONE THOUSAND POUNDS has been deposited in the Australian Joint Stock Bank Sydney to pay the reward above offered. Further particulars in the leading article.

  Leading article? What leading article? How had she missed it? She flicked to the front page, her hands damp and shaking.

  It told her little she didn’t know, Pa might have written it himself, but for the last sentences.

  Thirty-two years ago Ludwig Leichhardt left on this ill-starred journey … the mystery remains unsolved … we have not given up the hope that the survivors or survivor of the party left some message for their fellow men …

  She read the words again, her mind returning to Miriam’s letter. Pa, like the writer of the article, had concluded there was no hope of Leichhardt being found alive. He’d told her that before he left. We have not given up the hope that the survivors or survivor of the party left some message for their fellow men. Could the canister contain some message from Leichhardt and Classen? She pushed out of the chair intent on asking Olivia her opinion then stopped short, her gaze returning to the initial advertisement:

  … to be kept absolutely secret until communicated to and published by the SYDNEY BULLETIN …

  She’d never kept anything from Olivia. She slumped down and gazed out into the encroaching darkness. Pa has been closeted with a Mr Du Faur, something to do with a man named Skuthorpe who claims to know the whereabouts of some missing Leichhardt relics … an old watch and other rusty instruments …

  No mention of a canister containing Leichhardt and Classen’s writings. She rummaged through the piles of paper on the desk searching for the notes from the Geographical Society about the relics. Pa’d mentioned a telescope. A man had claimed to have found other relics and Classen and Leichhardt’s writings only to have them stolen from his bag while he slept. Surely if they had been stolen for financial gain they would have surfaced before now. If she could find some reference to the whereabouts of the papers perhaps it would lead to the conclusive evidence The Bulletin was looking for, and who was in a better place to do that? She had every scrap of information, every carefully collected fact on the desk in front of her in Pa’s notes, journals and reports. The lure of the reward dangled like a glittering jewel.

  It was the perfect solution. First and foremost, the thousand-pound reward would help Pa. And secondly, and more importantly he could come home and they could work on their book, and include the new evidence.

  A bubble of elation rose in her breast. The success, the accolades! With the support of The Bulletin, Pa’s name would go down in history as the man who solved the mystery of Leichhardt’s disappearance. Everything Pa yearned for, everything he deserved, achieved in one single swoop. Somewhere on his desk among the notes, letters, journals and newspaper articles the answer must lie. She could feel it beneath her fingertips eluding her, playing the kind of hide-and-go-seek game she’d loved as a child.

  In a flurry of agitation, she leafed through Pa’s handwritten notes putting to one side anything that mentioned the Leichhardt relics. With the help of articles from the Illustrated Sydney News, The Queenslander, The Morning Bulletin and other newspaper clippings, she created a pile of papers that clarified the story of the man Pa had told her about before he left for Sydney. A man called Andrew Hume.

  She wrote his name in large letters then picked up a cutting from The Maitland Mercury. It told of his early life. How he’d come to Australia as a child with his mother and father. His father was a stockman in the Hunter River District, and he’d grown up on a property belonging to the Halls near Dartbrook. Then when the family moved to Maitland and bought a shop, Andrew left to travel to the interior where he claimed to have met a white-haired old man living with the natives who was the s
ole survivor of an attack on Leichhardt’s party. He had shown him a canister containing letters and a roll of papers, a watch, quadrant, thermometer and telescope. The old man insisted he was unable to make the journey to Sydney and on his instructions Hume buried everything under a marked bloodwood tree and set off for Sydney to inform the government. Who was this old man? Was he a member of Leichhardt’s party? Were the rumours about them being taken captive by the natives true?

  She shuffled through the articles until she found a report saying Hume had been arrested on his way back to Sydney as a bushranger and sent to gaol before he had told anyone of the old white-haired man. With a groan, she let her head fall to the table. Why hadn’t she listened more carefully to Pa’s stories?

  Oxley’s plaintive whine brought her to her senses and she threw open the door to find Olivia balancing a plate of sandwiches and a glass of lemonade on a tray somewhat like a peace offering.

  Whisking around she covered the papers on the desk with a sheet of cartridge paper, the words absolutely secret resounding like the koel’s cry, over and over in her mind. Olivia mustn’t see them. None of them. Especially not the notes she’d made on Andrew Hume.

  ‘I called you but you can’t have heard me. Perhaps you were dozing.’ Olivia handed Evie the tray and settled in the chair opposite.

  ‘Daydreaming.’ Evie fumbled for more words, came up short and took a bite of the sandwich instead. Oxley sidled closer, quivering in anticipation and pressed against her leg.

  ‘You’ve got quite a job on your hands if you are going to make any sense of this mess. Can I help?’ Olivia asked.

  It was the last thing Evie wanted. She picked up a graphite pencil, examined its well-used tip and started doodling.

  ‘Do you want me to help?’

  ‘Thank you, Aunt Olivia, but no. Pa entrusted me with his papers and I feel I would be breaking his faith …’

  ‘Piffle and nonsense. What’s he got here that I don’t know about? William forgets I remember the very moment his infatuation with the man began. Remember delivering Leichhardt’s wretched letters, reading them when William could barely lift his head from the pillow.’ Olivia rested her hands on Evie’s shoulders and gazed down at the desk. ‘What’s that you’re drawing?’

  Without thinking she’d sketched the artefacts Andrew Hume had buried—a hunting watch, quadrant, thermometer and telescope lying in the desert, alongside the skull of a long-dead bullock. Thank heavens she’d stopped before she’d drawn the canister with the papers, she’d never have explained that away. ‘It’s just a picture.’

  ‘Strange things to be drawing.’

  ‘Not strange, something that will need to go on my map.’

  ‘More Leichhardt rubbish unless I’m very much mistaken.’ Olivia stuck her nose in the air and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  With a sigh Evie pushed aside her half-eaten lunch. ‘Go on, Oxley, you can have it.’ The sandwich vanished in a single gulp. ‘Greedy boy. The lemonade’s mine.’ Sipping the drink, she surveyed the mess on the desk. Did Hume get out of gaol? It was worse than reading one of the serials in The Bulletin, waiting for the next instalment.

  More rummaging uncovered a series of pages of Pa’s looping scrawl. Notes from a meeting with Du Faur. Hume had talked his way out of gaol by telling the authorities about the old man and he was given a revolver, ammunition and £12 for the journey from Newcastle to the Roper River where he received a horse, saddle and rations to enable him to go and collect the papers and relics he claimed to have buried.

  Upon arriving in Sydney all he had was the telescope, some ink powder and blank paper and no one believed his story.

  And there it was, written in Pa’s rambling scrawl: On opening the satchel we discovered a large slash had been made most probably by a sharp blade, scoring the underside. The only contents being a telescope, which appears to be genuine, and some blank sheets of paper and ink. Hume confirmed the old man was indeed August Classen. Nothing remained in Hume’s saddlebag of the seventy-five pages of Leichhardt’s writings or the statement Hume claims Classen wrote during the month he was with him.

  How could that have happened? Whatever had made Pa and Du Faur believe his tale?

  Her eyes flew across the pages. The government had refused to fund a further expedition. She could understand that but there had been one, she knew, because Hume had perished in the desert on his final expedition to rescue Classen and bring him back to civilisation. Pa and Du Faur had financed it and interviewed the only surviving member of the three-man party. She squinted out of the French doors trying to recall his name—it escaped her.

  No wonder Pa was so interested in the Skuthorpe man, and short of money. All for nothing because Hume had died in the desert without meeting Classen again.

  Six years ago! The wind whistled out between her teeth. She was chasing shadows, or she had missed something?

  After a sleepless night peppered with images of barren tracts of red soil and bleached skeletons, Evie rose before daybreak, completed her chores in record time and set off for the study. Overnight Pa’s obsession had become her own. She could think of nothing else.

  Oxley foiled her plans letting out a sharp bark of glee the moment she entered the kitchen.

  ‘Stop right where you are!’ Olivia appeared from the depths of the pantry, her arms full of bottles and jars. ‘The pair of you.’

  Evie slid to a standstill, her cheeks rivalling stewed rhubarb. Oxley’s tail curled tightly between his back legs.

  ‘I need you to take something to Bailey.’ Olivia dumped the bottles onto the table, rummaged around in her apron pocket and handed her a piece of paper and a small drawstring bag. ‘Tell him it’s the best I can do, there’s an IOU for the remainder. I’ll have it when they come through next time.’

  Evie hefted the bag. Quite why it couldn’t wait until the afternoon she didn’t understand. ‘I’ll do it later.’

  ‘Now. He’s leaving this morning.’

  The drovers only turned up the day before and they always rested before heading up to the Liverpool Plains. ‘They’ve just arrived. I need to … What is it?’

  ‘Wages.’

  ‘Why don’t you give it to him this afternoon?’

  ‘Just do as you’re bid and stop asking questions. I told you he’s leaving now. And don’t forget to give him the IOU and tell him I’ll get the rest to him as soon as I can.’

  ‘But Pa always gives them the full amount …’ Oh! Then money must be tight, as Olivia had said.

  ‘William’s got other things on his mind, you know that, and contrary to common opinion I’m not the Bank of New South Wales otherwise I wouldn’t have had to let Mrs Hewitt go.’ Olivia gave one of her irritated huffs and started shunting the bottles backwards and forwards. ‘And don’t forget your hat. Your brains will cook in this heat.’

  Evie loosened the pins in her hair and rammed her hat down hard, making sure it wouldn’t blow off then left, Oxley dogging her footsteps.

  If Bailey was about to leave there was only one way to catch him, cut behind the stables and meet him at the main gates; that way she wouldn’t be caught up in the swirling furore of irritated cattle and yapping dogs. Fine on horseback but not on foot.

  She spotted him at the top of the driveway sitting astride his big black stallion, Raven, under the shade of the trees. ‘Cooee. Bailey!’

  Oxley made a fine imitation of her call and Bailey turned and lifted his hat in acknowledgement, wheeling Raven around to meet her.

  She held the bag out, her breath coming in ragged gasps. ‘Aunt Olivia says it’s the best she can do, there’s an IOU for the rest because she’s not the Bank of New South Wales. Why are you leaving early? What about the dance tonight? Aunt Olivia will miss you.’

  Evie wouldn’t be there, she’d be buried in Pa’s study but she knew Olivia and the drovers loved their night on the common at Yellow Rock. They’d light a big fire and bring out their fiddles and the girls from B
roke would come and flutter their eyelashes and dance until their feet dropped off.

  ‘They’ll be here for a few more days, there’ll still be a knees-up. I’m picking up some horses in Maitland to take up to Scone then I’ll meet them at Murrurundi.’

  On the stock route. She’d marked it on her map; the drovers always went that way to the Liverpool Plains and onto Queensland.

  He tilted his hat and scrubbed his hand over his face then gazed up at the house, a pained expression etching his usually sunny face. ‘Tell Olivia I’ll be back through in a month or so. That should give her time to chase up young Mr Ludgrove for the rest of the money.’

  It seemed strange that Olivia hadn’t spoken to Bailey herself. And why would anyone call Pa young? But Bailey had been with them since he could sit astride a horse and his father before him, boss drovers the pair of them. ‘What’s the rush?’

  ‘Going to catch up with one of my father’s old mates. They worked together at Hall’s place at Dartbrook.’ He wheeled his horse around. ‘Take care of yourself, and Olivia. No wandering off.’ He threw her a half-hearted smile and popped his horse into a lively canter.

  ‘Have a good trip. See you when you get back,’ she called after him.

  With the warm sunshine on her back she meandered through the long grass, full of a flush of wildflowers, while Oxley pranced around chasing butterflies. Since Pa had been in Sydney no one had time to scythe the grass and she preferred the picture it presented. Untamed and more natural. A few days ago in a moment of conceitedness, she’d sketched a picture of herself sitting among the wildflowers. ‘What do you think, Oxley?’ She ruffled the fur on the top of his head and he turned his liquid eyes up to her face. ‘Shall we send it to Pa?’