The Girl From Eureka

by Cheryl Adnams

  Together they could turn her mother’s small vegetable patch into a proper farm. A good living could be made from what they grew and sold to the stores in town. Especially if they sold to the hotels for their restaurants, or to John Alloo for his popular Chinese restaurant. She would learn how to grow the foreign vegetables he no doubt paid a fortune to import.

  Excited at the thought of a new challenge, her clever brain began to put it all together. And none of it would include having a man around messing with her head or her heart. Life was simpler without men. Life had been simpler before she’d ever met Will Marsh. With his sunny blond hair and his warm, dark eyes and his hands … his hands. Her stomach flipped as she recalled the pleasure he could incite within her body with only the softest caress of those hands.

  The dig in her ribs had her jumping sky high, spinning at the same time to aim the stick she held at her assailant.

  ‘Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ she exclaimed as a grinning Jack Fairweather stepped into the light. She exhaled a gust of relieved breath. ‘Jack, you scared the typhus out of me.’

  ‘And I am glad of it,’ Jack said. ‘You’re so easy to sneak up on. What were you thinking about sitting here alone looking all forlorn like a puppy?’

  ‘None of your beeswax, bushranger. And shush,’ she scolded him. ‘Annie and Sean are sleeping. You shouldn’t be here, Jack. It’s not safe. There are traps about, and soldiers.’

  ‘I know,’ he said and looked towards the stockade as Indy had done only moments before. ‘I had to come and see for myself this fort the miners have built.’

  ‘Fools,’ Indy grumbled.

  ‘Aye,’ Jack agreed, unusually solemn. ‘Can’t fault their commitment though.’

  Taking out a liquor flask, Jack handed it to her before he sat beside her on the log. She eyed the shiny and expensive-looking flask before she gave him a look of censure. It was no doubt stolen from some rich fellow. But needing the hit of calm the liquor would give her, she took the flask and drank long and deep.

  ‘Will you join them in their stand?’ he asked her as she handed back the flask.

  She shrugged. ‘I took the oath.’

  She watched him take a long swig of the liquor himself before he spoke again. ‘And what does your boyfriend think of that?’

  She narrowed her eyes at Jack but said nothing.

  ‘Indy Wallace, I’ve known you a long time,’ he said smiling a crooked smile. ‘I can see you’re crazy in love with the soldier boy.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  Jack hesitated a moment before speaking again. ‘I believe him to be a good man.’

  Indy’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

  ‘I know I don’t say that about soldiers as a rule,’ Jack added defensively. ‘But I can see he is a gentleman and I’d wager he is quite smitten with you too.’

  Shyly lowering her eyes, she sighed heavily.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now. Our paths are divided by all of this.’ She waved a hand towards the stockade. ‘We had words. A disagreement. I was mercilessly vicious. He thinks himself well shot of me now I imagine.’

  ‘Not possible. You’re a pain in the arse a good portion of the time, but I for one know it’s impossible to stay mad at you. Talk to him.’

  ‘Oh, to be sure,’ Indy huffed. ‘I’ll just wander over to the government camp, knock on the gate and ask to see Lieutenant Marsh.’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘The diggers already think me a spy.’

  ‘So I’ll go to him for you,’ Jack offered with an easy shrug, like he was offering to go to the market for her. ‘I’ll get him a message that he must come to meet you.’

  ‘We can’t be seen together.’

  ‘So meet somewhere privately,’ Jack said and added a lewd smile that had his brows dancing above his honey-coloured eyes. ‘Do I have to think of everything?’

  Indy turned it over in her head. Could she dare to hope that Will might forgive her?

  ‘Use the widow Barnett’s boarding house,’ Jack suggested. ‘She owes me a favour since I handed back some goods I appropriated on the highway that were meant for her. We have an agreement. I don’t steal her deliveries on the road from Melbourne and she allows me to stay in the boarding house rent free when I have a need.’

  Indy frowned into the glowing red coals of the campfire. ‘He wouldn’t come probably.’

  ‘Won’t know less you try.’

  Regret filled her as she thought back to the last time she’d seen Will. ‘I said some awful things to him.’

  ‘Then say you’re sorry before you bed him,’ Jack said and laughed loudly again.

  ‘Shh,’ Indy reprimanded. She sat quietly for a moment as she churned over Jack’s proposal. He made it sound so easy. But if there was even the slightest chance Will would come to her, she should try shouldn’t she? She could explain, tell him she understood now, tell him that she was sorry for the horrible accusations she’d laid against him. But how could Jack possibly get a message to him? It was a stupid idea. ‘You can’t get into the government camp any more than I can.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Jack said with a devious wink. ‘I have my ways. I’ll talk to Mrs Barnett. I’ll talk to the Lieutenant Handsome and get word to you when it’s all arranged.’

  Indy’s eyes met his, but she couldn’t read him. ‘Why are you doing this, Jack?’

  ‘What can I say,’ Jack said shrugging. ‘I’m a hopeless romantic. That and I want you as far away from that blasted stockade as possible, for as long as possible.’

  She kissed his cheek and drank more of his liquor and they sat and stared into the fire in a companionable silence.

  Chapter 25

  Two days later, Will was a reluctant traveller on an errand to Creswick. The supplies in the bullock dray they guarded were being taken to the small garrison of soldiers in the goldfields at Bendigo. They would only escort the dray as far as Creswick before turning around and doing the return trip to Ballarat, this time with their wagon full of weapons and ammunition. It should have concerned Will the amount of weaponry that was being stockpiled at the government camp, but his mind was elsewhere.

  He knew he was being punished for his continuous questioning of his superior officers, and being relegated to supply detail did not help alter the bad mood he’d been in since the raid on the Gravel Pits.

  Thankfully, he had been allowed to request a soldier to accompany him and he had selected George.

  ‘You may as well have chosen to take this trip alone for all the company you’ve been,’ George’s voice broke into the myriad thoughts scattering through Will’s brain.

  ‘Sorry,’ Will mumbled, but still made no attempt to converse.

  ‘Uh oh,’ George started. ‘Do I detect trouble in the love life of William Marsh?’

  He merely grunted and scowled even deeper than he had been.

  ‘Did you quarrel with your love, my Lord?’ George continued to tease.

  ‘Must you harass me?’

  ‘You brought me on this trip, old friend,’ George said, tossing roasted nuts in the air and catching them in his mouth with ease. ‘Therefore, you must deal with my tormenting you, should it please me to do so. And just now, it pleases me.’

  Looking over at his friend, he couldn’t help but laugh at the goofy grin on George’s face. Nothing ever bothered the man. He was lighthearted in the face of whatever was thrown at him. And just now, Will envied him that ability.

  Taking a deep breath, he exhaled with a frustrated growl.

  ‘That bad?’ George asked.

  Will gave him a shortened account of the raid two days before and Indy’s reaction.

  ‘She can’t seem to grasp that I was only doing my job,’ he said, finishing the story. ‘The woman is impossible. She’s stubborn and hardheaded and nearsighted.’

  ‘And you love her.’

  Will’s head snapped around to stare wide-eyed at George.

  ‘What? I never said that.’

&
nbsp; The corner of George’s mouth kicked up in a half grin. ‘You didn’t have to.’

  It shouldn’t have surprised him that his friend knew him so well. They rode without conversation for a moment or two. Only the rhythmic plodding of horse and bullock hooves on the hard road, and the occasional native bird cry, could be heard as Will mulled over George’s keen observation.

  He’d suspected his strong feelings for Indy were what people described as love. Even as far back as Trevor and Eliza’s wedding the idea had been playing in the recesses of his mind. But he had managed to keep it locked back there safely. That was until she’d put herself at risk and come to see him at the government camp during his confinement to quarters. Seeing her climbing over the fence of the camp in the moonlight had simultaneously thrilled and terrified him. Three days confined to the camp, without being able to see her had been agony. The past few days without her—knowing she was angry at him, probably despised him—was a new type of agony.

  ‘And despite knowing you were only doing your job, you feel guilty,’ George spoke up again.

  ‘I have become exactly what she hates. I am now most definitely the enemy. But what am I supposed to do? If I don’t follow orders, I am an anarchist and a deserter. But to her that’s the better option. She’s impossible.’

  ‘Yes, you said that already.’

  At a loss to explain to his friend how he felt about Indy, Will fell into a melancholy silence and was thankful that George seemed to be done with his teasing for the moment.

  At about the halfway point between Ballarat and Creswick, the horses became agitated and skittish. Will looked to the trees.

  ‘Be aware, George,’ he said, the hairs on his neck rising. ‘I’d say we have company.’

  ‘The last supply coach that had “company”, as you say, did not return with all men alive,’ George added, his keen eyes also scanning the brush beside the road.

  From behind several large bushes, three men rode out halting the forward motion of the dray. Their faces were covered in black kerchiefs and their guns were out and pointed at Will and George.

  ‘Throw your weapons over there,’ the masked man who appeared to be the leader called out. One of the bushrangers kept the bullock driver busy, the second moved in to sort through the cargo. The bushranger who had spoken stayed alert on Will and George.

  George looked at Will questioningly.

  ‘Don’t try to be a hero, soldier boy,’ the bushranger called back, reading them easily. ‘I am fast with a gun and it’s not my wish to take your life today, only your goods.’

  Both men removed their guns and threw them across to the tree the man had motioned to.

  ‘You,’ the man pointed at Will. ‘Lieutenant of the fair hair. Dismount.’

  Will frowned. Not because of the request, but when the bushranger had spoken there’d been a twinkle in the highwayman’s eyes that somehow seemed familiar to him.

  ‘Will,’ George said, anxious for his friend.

  But curious, Will did as asked and dismounted before putting his hands in the air in surrender.

  ‘Now, sir, if you would be so kind as to lead the way into the woods,’ the bushranger requested.

  Noting George’s nervous movements on his horse, he gave his friend a quick shake of his head. ‘It’s okay. Don’t do anything stupid. Just wait till I return.’

  George, unsure and on edge, sent a warning of his own. ‘Be careful, bushranger.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll return your man in one piece,’ the bushranger tossed back with a teasing wink.

  The highwayman stayed mounted and followed as Will walked into the scrub until they were far enough from the others.

  ‘Stop here.’

  Will obeyed and turned to face his foe. The highwayman lowered his kerchief and his gun, and Will exhaled loudly with a combination of relief and annoyance.

  ‘Jack. I thought it was you.’

  ‘Now, what sort of rubbish is that?’ Jack asked, tossing his hands in the air. ‘How is a highwayman to make a living these days if he is so recognisable? You’ve met me but once. It’s my pretty eyes isn’t it? They give me away.’

  Will merely rolled his own eyes. ‘Yes, Jack, it’s your pretty eyes. Men on the roads will fear Jack Fairweather the bushranger for his pretty eyes. Now, why the hell am I here?’

  ‘Sorry, old chap,’ Jack said, grinning as he dismounted. ‘Only way I knew how to get you alone.’

  ‘And just why do you need to get me alone?’

  ‘Indy.’

  The panic was immediate. ‘What is it? Is she hurt? Is she ill? Speak man, has something happened to her?’ He grabbed Jack by the shirt and shook him but Jack only smiled his crooked smile.

  ‘So, you do care about her.’

  Will dropped his hands and stepped back.

  Jack straightened his shirt and waistcoat. ‘Knowing that makes this a lot easier for me.’

  ‘Makes what easier?’

  ‘I come to you with a message from a lady,’ Jack announced, then chuckled. ‘Well, a message from Indy anyway.’

  ‘A message?’

  ‘She wishes to see you?’

  More than surprised, Will leaned heavily back against a tree. ‘Why? To tell me again what a terrible and pathetic excuse for a human being I am? That I am cuckolded by the army?’

  ‘She said that?’ Jack snorted in amusement but then whistled low. ‘Ouch. She has a way with words, that girl.’

  Will just grunted and dug the toe of his boot into a patch of mushrooms, watching the brown dust cloud waft away in the breeze.

  ‘What she wishes to discuss with you is her business,’ Jack said. ‘I will never understand the vagaries of the fairer sex but Indy is special to me, so heed me, Lieutenant.’

  He glanced up at the warning in Jack’s tone.

  ‘If you hurt her in any small way, shape or form either by design or by accident, if you so much as cause one tear to fall, I will see to it that pain will be your constant companion. Your internal organs will become my personal punching bag …’

  Will held up a hand to stop him. ‘I get the picture. You too have a way with words, Jack.’

  The two men stared each other off, and Will couldn’t help himself. ‘Do you love her, Jack?’

  Jack’s honey-coloured eyes softened for a moment before the bushranger’s grin was back in place. ‘Meet her tonight at nine at the Barnett Boarding House. The widow is expecting you and shall remain tight-lipped.’

  ‘The Commissioner has called a curfew at eight pm. And just how in the hell am I supposed to move about the town after dark? We soldiers can barely leave camp in daylight for fear of getting our heads knocked in or blown off.’

  ‘So tonight you are not a soldier,’ Jack said, and pulling a duffel bag off his horse he tossed it at Will.

  He caught it awkwardly, glancing into the bag quickly as Jack mounted his horse again. ‘Thank you, Jack. I don’t know how to repay you.’

  ‘Just take care of her,’ Jack told him. ‘This world is about to collapse and I don’t want her anywhere near it when it happens.’

  ‘You’re a good man, Jack Fairweather.’

  Jack baulked. ‘Christ, don’t let that get about. I have a reputation to uphold. Now, I must bid you good day. I’m afraid I will have to liberate you of some of your goods however. Can’t have people thinking that Jack Fairweather has gone soft.’

  He positioned the kerchief over his face again and with a wave of his gun directed Will back to the road.

  ***

  When Will and George returned to Ballarat, rumours were spreading throughout camp like the plague. Rede was sure an attack on the camp was imminent. Sandbags, bales of hay, sacks of flour and wheat were carted out of the stores and piled in front of the most important buildings and along the fenceline facing the diggings.

  The women who had somewhere else to go had been moved out of the government camp weeks ago but those who had stayed were set up in the sturdiest buildings for saf
ety. At eight pm the announcement came that all tents near the camp were under a curfew.

  ‘Lights out!’ the soldiers shouted as they made rounds of the tents closest to the government camp. Darkness fell quickly as the order was obeyed on threat of summary fire.

  Will glanced up at the full moon shining brightly. It would be tantamount to suicide to attempt an attack on the government camp. Anyone making a run on the camp would easily be spotted by the many sentries standing post around the picketed fence. Occasionally, a handful of clouds would cross the white orb blacking everything out. But when the clouds rolled away, it was almost as bright as the sun rising. The trees beyond the camp and the tents nearby were easily seen and that meant Will had to choose his moment carefully.

  His eyes swept up to the heavens again and when he saw a large clump of clouds drifting towards the moon, he made his move. Casually, he sidled up to an unmanned area of the fence, pretending to relieve himself in case anyone saw. It was a low fence and easy to jump, and less than fifty yards away was the edge of the scrub leading to Black Hill.

  As the clouds moved in again and moonlight dimmed, Will hurdled the fence. His heart racing, he ran full speed across the clearing to the safety of the trees. Once under cover, he removed his red coat, and pulled on the blue miner’s shirt Jack had given him. As he stuffed his uniform coat into the duffel bag, he half expected to hear the crack of a rifle or the whistle of a bullet by his ear, and more than once he asked himself what the hell he was doing. He’d get himself killed before the night was over, either by his side or by the rebels. And all for a woman. All so that he could spend five minutes in Indy’s company again.

  Is she worth it? his practical brain asked as he ran in the dark, dodging tree branches as best he could. Soon he was far enough away from the camp that he was able to slow to a walk. In cover of the bush, he changed out of his uniform trousers to complete his disguise. The moon came out again to light his way to the rear of the township.