The Burning Land

by John Fletcher

  ‘’Fore God‚’ Luke said, ‘there was times I thought we’d never get ’ere.’

  They looked. The course of the underground stream showed clearly beneath the rock strata but of gold there was no sign.

  ‘’Ave to dig ’er out‚’ Luke said. ‘’Ollow out a chamber, push it out to the edges of the claim.’

  ‘I was hoping the gutter would be full of gold,’ Matthew said, disappointed.

  ‘That’s what we was all ’oping,’ Luke said. ‘But tes a question o’ luck, see? The riverbed be smooth. Nuthin to trap the gold. What we d’need is a rock bridge or fall across the main flow o’ the stream.’

  It was a dreadful thought that they might have dug so deep to find nothing.

  ‘We don’t find something we’ll be cleaned right out,’ Hamish said.

  ‘Too soon to talk like that,’ Matthew said.

  Three days later he sent up a tub of greenish gravel and small boulders. He climbed swiftly to join the others.

  ‘What do you reckon?’

  They weighed the pebbles in their hands.

  ‘Goddamn, it’s heavy‚’ Hamish said. ‘Heavy as—’

  ‘Gold?’ Matthew said, hysteria not far away.

  They stared at each other, hoping and not daring to hope.

  Hamish asked, ‘Much more of this stuff?’

  ‘No end to it. Four feet deep all across the chamber. And it looks like there’s more higher up.’

  They loaded the gravel on the horses and took it to the stamps at the far end of the valley where, for a fee, the owners would crush samples brought to them.

  The next day they had their answer.

  ‘Fifty pounds weight of gold? In the one tub?’

  They stared at each other.

  ‘We’d best be gettin’ back,’ Luke said. ‘’Fore others start ’elpin’ theyselves.’

  They carried on excavating the chamber. The mass of gold-rich gravel continued and every day the figure of the wealth extracted from California Deep grew higher.

  ‘Twenty thousand pounds,’ Hamish said exultantly.

  By the beginning of the summer the figure had grown to more than forty thousand pounds. Life, however, still had its problems—to help them keep their feet on the ground, as Luke said.

  ‘Not much chance of anything else,’ Hamish pointed out. ‘Not with us spending the whole of our lives down the bottom of that dern shaft.’

  There was the normal problem of digging out the rock. They had lived with it for so long it had become a natural part of all their lives but nobody, Matthew thought, would choose to spend their lives in such a way.

  With the return of hot weather the heat and humidity became unspeakable. All the shafts had the same difficulty. Without adits the gas and humidity at the bottoms of the shafts became so appalling that some men died of it, overwhelmed by temperatures of a hundred and forty degrees and higher, and humidity that was close to one hundred per cent.

  ‘Funny business being rich and living like this,’ Hamish said after three days of temperatures over a hundred and ten degrees above ground and thirty degrees hotter at shaft bottom.

  They rigged a calico windsail to direct any breeze down the shaft, which helped but not much. The other mines copied them, the calico sheeting looking from a distance like the head-sails of a fleet of ships sunk below a sea of clay and piled rock.

  One morning, very early, Matthew sat with Luke and Nance outside the tents. The sun would be up shortly and to the east the sky above the ranges was bright. Perhaps it was the outline of the hills speaking to him of the land that lay beyond them, unimaginably vast and mysterious, but there was something about the early mornings that made Matthew depressed.

  ‘Here we are grubbing in the earth‚’ he said, ‘and over there a huge continent’s waiting.’

  On the other side of the shaft the calico sail hung motionless in the dawn. Behind them the pumping engine throbbed steadily.

  ‘Ain’t no gold beyond the ranges‚’ Luke said. ‘Leastways, not so far’s we d’know.’

  ‘You could have anything you wanted, what would you choose?’ Matthew asked him.

  ‘Ben scratchin’ in the earth all my life‚’ Luke said. ‘Where I comes from, folks is jest ’bout born lookin’ for copper an’ tin.’

  ‘Not what I asked,’ Matthew said. He turned to Nance. ‘What about you? What do you want?’

  It made her nervous to be asked that sort of question. She would feel foolish to talk about the picture or her other dreams. ‘I never thought about it‚’ she said quietly.

  The answer did not satisfy Matthew. It had suddenly become important to know what they were doing and why. Hamish would be coming up shortly and he would be taking his place, turning his back on light and air and life to burrow like a blind mole twenty fathoms below grass. If there was a reason for doing it, he wanted to know what it was.

  Luke sucked on a piece of grass. ‘Tes all I d’ know‚’ he said eventually. ‘All any real miner wants, I suspect.’

  ‘Why? We got plenty of money now. We’re rich.’

  ‘Riches got nuthin to do with it. Tes lookin’, that’s what makes yore blood run. If you’re a miner.’

  Three men came riding purposefully towards them out of the dawn light, harness jingling as they approached. Their own horses, grazing together on the sparse grass on the far side of the claim, raised their heads and whickered softly at the strange animals.

  ‘What we got ’ere?’ Luke wondered.

  The leading rider dismounted and came over to them. He swaggered as he walked, boot heels bruising the earth as though he owned it and didn’t care who knew.

  Luke and Matthew looked up at him without moving.

  ‘G’day,’ Matthew offered.

  The man had light blue eyes, a thick moustache, and a blue jacket buttoned tight to a fleshy neck. There was a holstered pistol on his glossy leather belt, a carbine behind his saddle. There was a navy blue cloth under the saddle and his horse was a rich chestnut brown.

  ‘Jenkins,’ he said. ‘Goldfields police.’

  ‘Heard of you,’ Matthew said, not moving.

  Jenkins, looking as though he expected greater deference, snapped his fingers. ‘Licences,’ he ordered.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘You know the law. I want to see them. Now.’

  ‘Why not say so then?’

  Matthew grubbed in his pocket and pulled out the creased piece of paper. Luke was already proffering his.

  As Jenkins examined them his companions sat their horses unmoving, eyes white in their tanned faces. The pump throbbed and wheezed, the water made a wet sound as it sloshed from the drainage pipe.

  Jenkins thrust them back, opening his hand so they had to grab the licences before the breeze blew them away.

  ‘Why don’t you tear them up while you’re at it?’ Matthew asked.

  Jenkins’ pale eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You really want to lose our licences, you could try chucking them down the shaft, I suppose.’

  ‘Sassy bloody diggers‚’ Jenkins said. ‘All I need.’

  He walked towards the rim of the shaft, stopped a yard or two short of it. ‘Anyone down there?’

  ‘My partner,’ Matthew said. ‘He’ll be up directly.’

  ‘He’d better come up right now, unless he wants me to run him in. What’s his name?’

  ‘Sir Charles Hotham,’ Matthew said. ‘Same name as the governor.’

  Jenkins smiled. ‘Smart arses. I love ’em.’

  ‘Hamish Fairchild,’ Luke said, ignoring Matthew’s glare. ‘Probably on his way up, b’ now.’

  Jenkins looked over the edge of the shaft. ‘Fairchild‚’ he bellowed. ‘Up here. On the double.’

  ‘On the double?’ Matthew asked. ‘You think he’s going to run up the side of the shaft, that it?’

  ‘I can see I’m going to enjoy dealing with you,’ Jenkins said.

  Hamish stuck his head ove
r the lip of the shaft and climbed into the gathering daylight. He must have been almost at the top when the policeman called him.

  ‘You want something?’ he asked.

  ‘Licence,’ Jenkins said.

  ‘He’s efficient,’ Matthew said. ‘Doesn’t waste valuable time saying please.’

  Hamish dug out his licence. Jenkins checked it, handed it back and faced Matthew again. The blue eyes were pig-mean as he smiled. ‘Licence,’ he said.

  ‘You just seen it!’

  Behind him, Luke sighed.

  Jenkins clicked his fingers.

  Matthew’s mouth tightened. He thrust the licence at the policeman.

  Jenkins let him stand there. He bent down and rubbed his thumb on the muddy ground before taking the licence. He handed it back, leaving a rich smear of mud across it.

  ‘Keep that thing clean. Ain’t valid if I can’t read it.’ He nodded, turning away. ‘I’ll be seeing you again‚’ he said.

  ‘If I don’t see you first.’

  The policeman flushed. ‘You want to play silly buggers, just try it. Don’ forget, I always got my troopers with me.’

  ‘Never move without them‚’ said Matthew.

  The three troopers rode off, black looks, polished harness creaking.

  Matthew’s anger was still looking for a home. He glared at Luke. ‘Surprised you didn’t kiss his backside while you were about it.’

  ‘Never see no point in startin’ a fight you can’ win,’ he said calmly.

  ‘I’m not looking for a fight. But why do we have to put up with that?’

  ‘They be allus like that,’ Luke said.

  ‘Doesn’t make me like it any better. Makes me think of packing my bags and clearing out.’

  Luke puffed at his pipe, looking contemplatively at the blue rim of the distant hills. ‘Must be more than half way through the payable ground by now, I suppose. Plenty of gold still down there, mind.’

  ‘There’s more to life than gold.’

  The warmth was increasing now the sun was up. The reverberation of the stamps shook the ground. From somewhere came the smell of cooking bacon.

  Matthew said, ‘I been feeling more and more like moving on, ever since we struck gold. I came to the goldfields to do the things I want to do, not spend the rest of my life stuck at the bottom of a darn hole and having to answer the lip of damn fool policemen. Maybe the natives have got the right answer.’

  ‘What answer’s that?’ Nance asked.

  ‘They reckon the land is what matters. My foster father told me about it once. The land and the spirit are one, that’s what he said. Turn your back on the land, you turn your back on life.’

  ‘In the meantime‚’ Hamish said, ‘there’s a gold mine waiting. You planning to sit there all day yakking, or what?’

  ‘Reckon it wouldn’t hurt if I did.’ But got to his feet anyway.

  Nance moved into the shade and sat on a stool that Luke had knocked together out of some bits and pieces of wood. The everyday racket of the workings reverberated around her as she thought over what Matthew had said. She wondered where she was going.

  Money in the bank was no good if you couldn’t live right. There would never be an end to it if she stayed. She knew Luke too well. This was all the life he wanted. Finish in Ballarat, he’d be off to the next field. If he had a million quid, he’d still want to live in a tent, dig holes in the ground.

  Another thing. Luke was past it. The accident had knocked something out of him. He was like an old man, now. Anything happen to him, where would she be?

  Her trouble was she had never had a plan for her life. She went from one crisis to the next without working things out first. If you don’t know where you’re going, she thought, how can you expect to know when you get there? Maybe it was time she did something about that.

  Matthew was a good-looking young fellow. Big, too. Strong as an ox. He was like her, another one with some living to do.

  Nance, girl, you could do a lot worse, she told herself.

  Later that evening Nance sat outside the tent wishing she was somewhere else. Luke had gone to bed, but she was restless and had come out here where it was cooler. She liked to sit and watch the huge vault of star-spangled sky, thinking how it would be to wear a silk dress and live in a town with paved streets and clean water and breathe cool, sweet air. There was more to her thoughts than that. There was the image of a man in a grey frock coat, silk stock and diamond pin, tall hat on a head of smooth, black hair. Hair with a flame in it, maybe. He would be rich and live in a big house with servants and a lawn of smooth grass sloping down to the harbour with green hills on either side and the city only twenty minutes’ drive away in their own carriage.

  A few moments later Matthew came out to sit by the fire, flames ruddy on his face, to smoke his nightly cigar. She liked the smell of a cigar on a man. Better still, she liked the idea of it, the notion that a man could afford to sit at his ease and smoke an expensive cigar excited her with a feeling almost sexual in its intensity. A young man, too, she thought. Young and strong.

  She got up and walked across to join him. ‘Chilly tonight‚’ she said.

  He made a place for her on the rug beside him and she sat hugging her knees, staring at the flames.

  ‘Young man like you‚’ she said, ‘don’ seem right for you to be sitting around here all the time you’re not working.’

  Matthew threw the stub of his cigar into the fire. ‘I tell you, Nance, a man gets so tired working he don’t want to do anything but take it easy when he’s up top. Rest and eat and sleep.’

  ‘Luke said something about the mine coming to an end. What’ll you do when it’s finished?’

  ‘Move on somewhere else, I suppose.’

  ‘Another mine?’

  ‘That’s what Hamish and Luke will want.’

  ‘You’re neither one of them,’ she told him. ‘Why do you care what they want?’

  A log collapsed in a fountain of sparks. Matthew leant forward and pushed the embers together with the toe of his boot. ‘I didn’t say I care. I said that’s what they’ll want.’

  ‘That’s ’cause they’re miners. You’re different. You’re not one for mining, no more’n what I am.’

  The firelight shifted on his eyes as he looked at her. ‘And what will you do when the mine’s worked out?’

  Exactly what she had hoped he would ask. ‘Git as far away from ’ere as I can.’

  ‘And Luke?’

  ‘’Ave to take ’is chance, won’t ’e?’

  She picked up a loose pebble and tossed it to and fro in her hand, not looking at him. ‘Always fancied the city,’ she said. ‘Somewhere like Sydney. With the right sort of bloke I think Sydney would be good.’

  Matthew shook his head. ‘I don’t see Luke settling in a place like Sydney. Not me, either. Not for a good few years, anyway. There’s too much to see out there first.’ He laughed. ‘Plenty of time for that when I get old.’

  She flashed a glance at him. ‘Ever thought of taking someone with you when you go looking?’

  His eyes smiled at her in the firelight but when he spoke his voice was implacable. ‘I reckon that sort of journey is best made alone.’

  ‘She’s dying,’ Hamish said. ‘Shutting our eyes to it ain’t going to alter the fact.’

  The two men reined in their horses at the top of the rise and looked down at the valley with its ant-clutter of workings.

  ‘It’s been a week now‚’ Hamish said. ‘A week and nothing to show for it. We’ve cleared her out.’

  Matthew drew on his cheroot. Hamish was right. After the months of toil, of hopes, disappointments, anguish and ecstasy California Deep was dead. They were rich. At the last count the bank held over one hundred and thirty thousand pounds of their money. Even divided between them, they were still rich. Others had made money out of gold but most had blown it as quickly as they had earned it. He didn’t intend to be one of them.

  Matthew raised his eyebrows at hi
s partner. ‘What are you planning to do when we shut down?’

  Hamish said, ‘There’s a mountain a few miles away. There was talk of silver so I went to look at it.’

  He paused. Hamish usually talked a blue streak but now seemed oddly reticent.

  ‘Silver?’ Matthew wrinkled his brow. No one he knew knew anything about silver. ‘And what?’

  ‘Ironstone.’

  Matthew threw away the butt of his cheroot. ‘What’s the use of that? You find gold in quartz, not in ironstone.’

  ‘I took a sample, crushed it on a shovel and washed it in a pan of water.’ He stopped again.

  Matthew stared at him in exasperation. ‘Sakes alive, Hamish, getting this story out of you’s worse than digging a shaft. You got something to tell me, get on with it.’

  ‘It looked like there was more gold than iron‚’ Hamish said. ‘If gold was what it was. So I brought it back to Ballarat for assay. Got the results today.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s gold all right.’

  Matthew had visions of another field, another lifetime of living under canvas, breathing dust, working hundreds of feet below grass amid the stealthy creak and whisper of the shifting rock, the crushing weight of the eternal darkness of the mine. He wasn’t like Luke. Gold, glowing heavy gold, still exerted its fascination and always would but he did not have the true miner’s instinct always to be ripping wealth from the earth.

  ‘You want to start another rush,’ Matthew said.

  ‘Just what I don’t want,’ replied Hamish.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand you,’ Matthew said, ‘but I suppose you’ll get to it in time.’

  ‘A squatter is using that mountain as part of his sheep run,’ Hamish told him. ‘But the area ain’t right for sheep. Too wet, they say. The story I heard is he’d like to sell that section but can’t find a buyer. If we go to him with some yarn about sheep he might sell to us.’

  ‘How much are we talking about?’

  ‘About a thousand acres. We might be able to buy for maybe five shillings an acre.’