by Judy Nunn
‘Come with us.’ The voice was authoritative and automatically Rico rose from his bunk.
‘What has happened? How can I help you?’
‘Come with us,’ Mario repeated.
One of the other two sleeping men woke and propped himself up onto his elbow. ‘What is it?’ Fernando the Spaniard whined irritably. ‘A man is trying to sleep, what is going on?’
‘Nothing that concerns you,’ Mario said. ‘Come.’ And Rico felt a hand of steel grasp his arm.
He tried briefly to struggle but another hand grasped his other arm. ‘You. Stay here,’ Luigi commanded Fernando. And, before he knew it, Rico was dragged out into the bitter cold.
Fernando was wide awake now. He watched as the men dragged Rico outside. Rico was wearing nothing but his long cotton underwear; he would freeze out there. Should he wake Natale? Fernando wondered. Natale was snoring gently in the other bunk. No. Natale was the undisputed leader at the camp. Older and tougher than the others, he always acted as protector to the younger workers. He would want to interfere. This was not any of their business, Fernando decided. These men were bad men, he could sense it. Let Natale sleep on—he could sleep through anything. If Rico Gianni was in trouble then it was of his own doing and he must bear the consequences. In the dark, Fernando listened to the men’s boots crunching in the snow.
Rico was half-carried, half-dragged to the gully beside the track which led to the work site. ‘What is it?’ he demanded, his teeth chattering from the intense cold. ‘What do you want of me?’ From the little he could see of the men’s faces in the moonlight he did not recognise them. ‘I do not know you.’
‘But we know you, Gianni. You have defiled our family name.’ Luigi released Rico’s arm but, before he could struggle, Mario had locked both his elbows so hard behind his back that Rico felt any moment his arms would be ripped from their shoulder sockets. Mario nodded to Luigi who took a short length of steel pipe from his greatcoat pocket.
‘She was not worth your life, Gianni,’ Mario said. ‘You are a young man and she was a whore. Anybody could have had her. We will not take your life.’
Rico’s mind was racing. The De Cretico brothers. Of course. He recognised them vaguely now. He had seen them in the village years ago when he was a boy. They thought he was Giovanni.
‘She was not even worth your manhood. We will leave you to sire children. But you must pay for defiling the memory of our brother.’
Luigi struck with the steel pipe and Rico screamed as his kneecap shattered.
‘You must pay for degrading the name of De Cretico,’ Mario continued.
As Luigi raised the pipe again, Rico wanted to scream, ‘It was not me!’ But he did not. He clenched his teeth and waited for the blow. Again the steel pipe struck and this time Rico did not cry out. He fell to the ground and lay groaning as his shattered knees sank into the snow.
‘It will be a long time before you again walk up the hill to the big house,’ Mario said.
They carried him to his tent and threw him to the ground. ‘Crawl,’ Mario said. ‘Crawl inside to the warmth or you will die out here in the cold. Either way it matters little to us.’
The brothers left and it was only when Fernando could no longer hear the crunch of their boots that he shook Natale. ‘Natale, wake up,’ he begged. ‘Something has happened.’
‘Go away, leave me to sleep.’ Natale swatted at the man as he would a fly. But Fernando kept shaking.
‘Wake up, wake up.’
Natale was angry. Nobody woke him from his sleep. And certainly not Fernando the Spaniard. Natale sat up and was about to cuff the man when he saw Rico, clawing his way into the tent, his fingers digging into the ground, desperately seeking a purchase as, inch by inch, he dragged himself out of the cold.
‘Gesù Cristo!’ Natale sprang to Rico’s aid. He rolled him onto his back and pulled him inside the tent. ‘Blankets, Fernando, get blankets,’ he ordered. Then he saw the blood seeping through the legs of Rico’s rough cotton underwear and he looked at the mess that had been Rico’s knees. ‘Gesù Cristo, what have they done to you!’
NATALE SAT WITH Rico and waited for sunrise when a stretcher could be safely carried down the rough mountain track. Throughout the final hours of the night, although he was in great pain, Rico remained conscious and he whispered the truth to Natale.
‘If the De Cretico brothers find out it was me they crippled and not Giovanni, they will come after him,’ he said. ‘You must swear the men to secrecy, Natale. They do not need to know the truth but they must be sworn to secrecy.’
When dawn finally broke, Natale and another of the workers carried Rico down the mountain track to the village. Natale forbade the men to accompany them. It would call attention to the accident, he told them, and Rico did not wish that. The accident had happened at the work site, he stressed, and they were to say nothing more. Each of the men knew something far more sinister had happened but they respected the wishes of Natale and Rico and would keep their silence.
Natale led the way down to the village and to the doors of the Gianni cottage. He was not from Santa Lena but he had been a guest in the Gianni household on many a Sunday after church. Rico was his friend and Natale was ashamed that he had slept while this terrible thing had happened.
It was Vincenza Gianni, Rico’s mother, who met them at the door of the cottage. ‘Filomena! Ulanda! Giovanni!’ she called as she ushered the men inside. ‘Come! Come quick!’
The two young girls were the first to answer their mother’s cries, their hands still covered with cornmeal from mixing the polenta. When Vincenza lifted the blanket and they saw their brother’s wounds they screamed.
‘There is no time for that,’ Vincenza snapped. ‘Heat some water, fetch me clean rags. One of you …’ She looked at the two men. ‘… One of you fetch the medico.’ Natale nodded to the other man. ‘The white cottage three houses from the tavern,’ she said. The man turned to go. ‘The one with two chimneys!’ she called after him.
Giovanni appeared at the back door, the axe he had been using to chop firewood still in his hand. ‘Rico!’ He dropped the axe and ran to his brother’s side. Together he and Natale lifted Rico from the stretcher and carried him to the curtained-off section of the living area which housed his parents’ bed.
As they eased him gently down, Giovanni was about to say something but Vincenza snapped an order at him also. ‘Fetch me scissors, Gio.’ Giovanni ran to do her bidding and Vincenza turned to Natale, her eyes burning with anger. ‘Who has done this?’ she demanded.
Natale looked at Rico. The jarring trip down the rough mountain track had sapped what little strength his friend had left and the pain was acute, but he shook his head slowly.
‘It was an accident,’ Natale replied.
‘An accident! Hah!’ Vincenza scoffed. ‘This is no accident. A man does not have both his knees smashed like this in an accident!’
Giovanni returned with the scissors and Vincenza started cutting the fabric away from the wounds. ‘Gio,’ she ordered. ‘Go! Go now! Fetch your father and your brothers. It may take four or five days, but you bring them back as quick as you can. They will want revenge.’
Giovanni knelt beside his brother. ‘Who did this, Rico? Who did this to you?’
‘There will be no revenge.’ Rico’s voice was weak but insistent.
‘Of course there will be revenge.’ Vincenza continued to snip away at the cotton. ‘The Gianni family must avenge such an act. Your father would …’
‘There will be no revenge, Mamma!’ It was a command and Vincenza stopped, scissors poised. She looked questioningly at her son. Rico? The most headstrong of her boys? The first to wreak vengeance upon any who wronged a Gianni? What was he saying? ‘Put down the scissors,’ he insisted, ‘and go and help my sisters.’
Vincenza was about to refuse. ‘Please, Mamma,’ he urged. ‘I must speak with Gio. I will tell you all later, I promise.’
Giovanni remained kneeling by his brothe
r, a sudden sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
‘They thought that I was you,’ Rico said when their mother had left.
‘The De Cretico brothers.’ It was not a question. The De Cretico brothers did this.’
Rico nodded.
Giovanni’s face was ashen. Shame overwhelmed him and he bowed his head. He could not look at his brother. ‘Perduna mi,’ he whispered. Then he crossed himself. ‘Dio mio, perduna mi.’
Rico was weary and the pain was consuming him. If only he could sleep, he thought. ‘There is nothing to forgive, Gio, it has happened.’
Hatred raged beneath Giovanni’s shame. ‘I will kill them,’ he said. ‘I will hunt them down and kill them, I swear to you, Rico.’
Rico looked at his younger brother. There was venom in Giovanni’s voice and murder in his eyes. Giovanni of all people. Gentle, sensitive Giovanni who would never hurt a soul, who wanted only to sing his songs and play his concertina. This was not the same young man. This young man could kill.
‘Listen to me, Gio, listen to me.’ Rico summoned up his strength and his voice had the edge of authority to which Giovanni had always responded. ‘You will do nothing.’ Giovanni shook his head, but Rico continued. ‘If you seek revenge you will bring a vendetta upon our family. There will be war between the De Creticos and the Giannis and they are too powerful for us. Would you have your father and your brothers killed?’ His words had reached Gio, he could tell. ‘You see? You must be sensible.’
Rico ignored the helpless rage he could see in Giovanni’s eyes. ‘The De Creticos have avenged their brother,’ he persisted. ‘To them the score has been settled. We will open no more wounds and you will leave the country as soon as possible.’
‘No.’ Giovanni rose to his feet. ‘No, I will not leave and you cannot make me. If the brothers discover their mistake and wish to come for me, then so be it. I will not seek revenge, Rico, I promise, but I will not leave you.’
Rico was too weary and in too much pain to continue. ‘Talk to him, Natale. I am tired.’
‘We will talk when the medico comes,’ Natale said. ‘He will give you something for the pain, Rico, something to help you sleep. Rest now.’
When the doctor had been and gone and Rico was finally sleeping, Natale took Giovanni aside. ‘We must talk, Gio.’
They sat on the back step of the cottage. It was cold without their coats and scarves but neither of them noticed.
Giovanni stared at the open woodshed and the chopping block where, less than two hours earlier, he had been happily chopping firewood. ‘You will not persuade me to do my brother’s bidding,’ he said stubbornly. ‘I will not leave his side.’
‘You must. It is his wish.’
But Giovanni was not listening. ‘Did you hear the medico? He said Rico may never walk again. And if he does he will be a cripple. Rico, a cripple!’ Giovanni wanted to break down and cry but he fought against it. ‘I did that to him, Natale. It should have been me. It should be me in there now, on that bed. It should be me.’
‘Perhaps,’ Natale nodded. ‘But it is not. It is Rico.’
Giovanni put his head in his hands. He did not want Natale to see him weeping.
Natale said nothing for a while but, when he sensed that Giovanni was once more in control of himself, he leaned forward and spoke with great urgency.
‘Last night as we waited for the dawn, we spoke, Rico and I. It helped take his mind off the pain. Now you must listen, Gio, it will help take your mind off yours.’ Giovanni looked up at Natale, his eyes still wet with tears. ‘You must use what has happened to make you a man, that is what Rico wants. You are a boy, Gio. You are only two years younger than your brother and yet you are a boy.’
Giovanni looked confused. Natale continued. ‘Let us suppose you stay in Santa Lena and let us suppose the De Creticos realise their mistake,’ he explained. ‘Suppose they come one night and they cripple you too—what does that do to Rico? He has sacrificed himself for nothing.’
Giovanni stared back blankly at the older man.
‘It takes two blows to break a man’s knees, Giovanni. After the first blow Rico could have told them the truth. But he did not. It was his choice.’ Natale could see that the boy was deeply shocked but he continued, brutally. ‘He will never tell you this himself and if you ask him he will deny it. He doesn’t want you to live with guilt. But you will not be a man if you don’t make something of your life to repay your brother.’
Giovanni looked at the ground and nodded dumbly as he once again fought back the tears. Natale embraced him. ‘Now weep, Giovanni. Weep. There is no shame in tears.’
LATER THAT DAY the whole of Santa Lena was agog with the news which spread like wildfire throughout the village. Sarina De Cretico was dead. A terrible accident. A senseless death. She had tripped at the top of the staircase; the servants had witnessed it.
The following day, further news set the tongues wagging. There was to be a grand funeral. The De Cretico brothers would be arriving with their families in three days’ time, the servants said. They had sent word. And all arrangements were to be made for a ceremony of such pomp and splendour as had never before been seen in the village. Everyone was very excited.
‘YOU MUST LEAVE tomorrow, Gio.’ Rico was propped up in bed, a tent erected over his legs to keep the weight of the linen from his knees. Already he felt stronger, he said, and he scorned the doctor’s prediction. ‘Not walk? Rico Gianni? Hah, the medico is a fool. He can barely cure the animals he treats, what would he know?’
It was true the medico was really an animal doctor and, even in the area of veterinary science, his credentials were suspect. But he was educated. He could read and write and whether his potions were magic or medical miracles, he had saved many a life in the village so the peasants credited him with the title medico.
‘Not only will I walk, Gio. I will run, I will jump. Maybe not as fast or as high as I once did, but still I will beat you in a wrestling match, you wait and see.’
Giovanni did not know how much of Rico’s boasting was for his benefit or whether his brother genuinely believed his own bravado. But he knew he must not question it. ‘Yes, Rico, sure,’ he said.
Giovanni had given nearly all of their savings to Vincenza, leaving just enough to get to Genoa. He would find work at the docks there and save again for his passage to Australia. ‘Rico must go to a hospital, Mamma,’ he had said. ‘A big hospital in Milano where they have the best doctors who can mend his legs. As soon as I leave you must arrange it.’
‘Tomorrow, Gio,’ Rico insisted. ‘You are leaving tomorrow, si?’
‘Si.’
‘You have the money?’
‘Yes, I have the money.’
Rico grinned. ‘Find gold, Gio. Get rich. And when you are rich, Teresa and I will come and join you.’
‘Yes, Rico.’
They hugged each other and there were tears in Rico’s eyes as he held his brother tightly to him. ‘Find gold for me, Gio. Find gold for me at the bottom of the world.’
Maudie Gaskill stepped out of the Kalgoorlie branch of the National Bank of Australasia into the dry and dusty heat of Maritana Street. She held her hand up to her eyes to shield them from the shock of sunlight. Although it was late afternoon the glare was relentless and the heat oppressive. It was a goldfields midsummer.
She rounded the corner into Hannan Street. It was Friday, payday, and the bank had been busy. Maudie paid her staff every second Friday. The same Friday that the bank paid out the gold sovereigns preferred to banknotes by many of the contract miners. As usual on a late payday afternoon, the main street of Kalgoorlie was bustling with activity. Fashionably gowned women in ornate hats were strolling along the pavements towards the Palace Hotel. Others, in bonnets and worn cotton dresses, were shopping with their children, scrounging in their purses for the last pennies to buy a bargain. Men in wide-brimmed hats, well scrubbed after their eight-hour shift in the mines, were on their way to the pubs for a hard-earned beer an
d a game of billiards.
Fashionable sulkies drawn by pairs-in-hand shared the street with heavy drays hauled by Clydesdales and men on horseback from out of town. A man in a passing trap doffed his hat to Maudie and the woman beside him gave a graceful wave of her gloved hand. Richard ‘Lord’ Laverton and his wife, Prudence. Laverton was the General Manager of the Midas Mine and one of Kalgoorlie’s elite. He wasn’t really a lord at all, but his father was. Lord Lionel Laverton of Hampshire, England, was chairman of the mine’s London board of directors. Having given his youngest son an Oxford education and a place in the family firm only to discover that the boy was a wastrel, he had bought Richard an important position in Kalgoorlie, hoping that the rigours of Australia might make a man of him. The people of Kalgoorlie were dutifully impressed and, although the upper echelons were aware that Richard wasn’t really a lord in his own right, they were quite prepared to grant him the title. He was General Manager of the Midas, after all. That in itself made him one of the hierachy, and no one could question the fact that he was genuine aristocracy.
To be openly acknowledged in the street by Lord and Lady Laverton was an indication of one’s standing in Kalgoorlie society, so when they waved to her from their passing trap, Maudie waved back. It meant little to her personally but it was good for business. As she looked down Hannan Street, many passers-by smiled a greeting, doffed their hats or openly called, ‘Afternoon, Maudie’, and she nodded to each in return.
Everyone knew Maudie. And not just because she owned one of the most popular pubs in town. Maudie Gaskill was physically imposing, a person who stood out in a crowd. Five feet ten inches in her stockinged feet, she had a build to match and was as strong as a man. Hers was not a handsome face. Having spent all of her life in mining towns, the outback sun had weathered her skin and squinted her eyes and she looked a good ten years older than her twenty-nine years. But Maudie was not ugly. There was humour in her eyes and bravado in her carriage. With her thick brown hair drawn back in its customary bun at the nape of her neck and her black straw bonnet adding extra inches to her height, Maudie was an impressive woman.