Band of Gold

by Deborah Challinor

  They remained that way for some minutes, their breathing finally quieting in unison, leaning on each other physically and emotionally, until Kitty became aware that Daniel was growing stiff against her belly.

  ‘Ah, Jesus, not now,’ he said very quietly over the top of her head, but he didn’t step away from her.

  And nor did Kitty move.

  He looked down, and his lips descended to hers and she tasted the salt of his tears as he kissed her, gently at first but then with rapidly rising passion. His hands closed over her breasts and briefly cupped their fullness, and she knew that this was not going to be an act of love or even finesse, but an urgent and greedy coupling to blunt the pain of a shared grief. And she also knew that, at this moment, she would accept it.

  She raised her arms and settled them firmly around Daniel’s neck as their mouths hungrily tasted each other, his groans increasing in urgency and his erection jabbing at her. He slid his hands down to her buttocks where they squeezed her flesh almost hard enough to hurt, then she felt the warm night air on her calves as her skirts were lifted to the small of her back. One hand held them there while the other slid between her legs through the gap in her drawers, and into the silky wetness there.

  Daniel gasped raggedly, let the skirts fall and hurriedly, clumsily undid his flies. He gathered up Kitty’s skirts again, this time from the front, shoved them out of the way, then bent his knees and picked her up. Guessing what he intended, she wrapped her legs around his waist and, her arms still clamped around his neck, slid herself onto him. He let out a strangled groan and, his knees close to buckling, pushed her against the wall and began to thrust powerfully into her. Almost immediately, the flimsy partition let forth an ominous splintering noise.

  ‘Oh God. In here?’ Daniel panted, indicating the bedroom.

  Kitty murmured her assent against his shoulder and he carried her in and laid her on the bed.

  As he drove in and out of her she closed her eyes, and soon his hair became dark gold with just a touch of grey at the temples, his eyes steel grey, his body a little more muscled and dusted with copper, and his touch the one she so desperately longed for. She felt the familiar sensation build deep within her, and when it had passed, she realised she was crying again.

  So was Daniel. He rolled off her, tugged up his trousers and lay staring at the roof, tears trickling into his hair.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Kitty didn’t look at him. She was too, now. ‘I know.’

  ‘I didn’t mean…I mean, that wasn’t what I wanted. Not like this.’

  ‘I know. I really do. But perhaps you should go now.’

  He got off the bed and made a half-hearted effort at tucking in his shirt. At the door he said, ‘Don’t hate me for this, please.’

  ‘I don’t.’ And she didn’t. ‘But it might be best if you didn’t…if you kept away for a while.’

  He looked wounded, but she could see he saw the sense in it. She listened as he opened, then closed, the cottage door, and then he was gone.

  She lay back and covered her eyes with her arm.

  She could smell him on her. It wasn’t unpleasant, and Daniel hadn’t been unpleasant, but for the first time in her life she had the scent of a man on her who wasn’t Rian.

  Oh God, what had she done?

  Pierre wouldn’t let her return to the bakery the following day—Amber had gone in her stead—so she was at home when Flora and Eleanor Buckley called.

  ‘Thank you for coming to the service yesterday, Mrs Buckley,’ Kitty said as she stood aside to let them in, wishing that people would simply leave her alone.

  ‘You look awful, Kitty,’ Flora said, pulling off her black kid gloves and dropping them on the table. ‘Have you any brandy? You look like you could do with some.’

  Kitty started guiltily, wondering if what she had done last night was somehow evident on her face. ‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked as she reached for the bottle at the back of the shelf.

  ‘It’s rather early but, now that you mention it, a tot would be agreeable,’ Flora said as she sat down.

  ‘Mrs Buckley?’ Kitty offered.

  ‘Perhaps just a drop. Thank you.’

  When they were settled at the table, Flora said, ‘I know you’re wishing we would just go away, Kitty, but Eleanor has something to tell you that might prove to be very important. Eleanor?’

  Eleanor, her eyes watering from the brandy, dabbed at her lips with a lace-edged handkerchief. ‘You may recall that the first time we met I told you that my husband Carl is a clerk at the Camp?’

  Kitty nodded.

  ‘Well, he’s not supposed to discuss his work with me, but he does, because like most people he’s not averse to a bit of gossip. And that’s all this is, Mrs Farrell, but I do so hope it has at least a grain of truth to it. Anyway, this morning Carl told me that yesterday, just before he finished his duties for the day, he was in the records room and inadvertently overheard a conversation outside the door in which the name Rian Farrell was mentioned.’

  Kitty went very still, her brandy glass halfway to her mouth.

  ‘Carl, of course, knows who your husband is,’ Eleanor went on, ‘because Captain Farrell had been up in front of d’Ewes twice before d’Ewes was moved on, and he also knows that I’m acquainted with you and attended your husband’s funeral, so his ears pricked up. He thought you would want to know. Not that he makes a habit of listening at doorways, you understand.’ Eleanor frowned. ‘Actually, he’s a civil servant, so he probably does.’

  ‘Eleanor, will you get on with it!’ Flora reprimanded.

  ‘What was being said about him?’ Kitty demanded. ‘About Rian?’

  ‘Well, please don’t get your hopes up, and I’ve no idea what this means, but, according to Carl, the person speaking said something about not being surprised that there wasn’t a coffin at Rian Farrell’s funeral, and that his band of merry men could have searched for a body until the cows came home and not found one, because Rian Farrell was nowhere near Ballarat.’

  ‘Were those the exact words?’ Kitty asked, her heart beginning to pound with something that was almost, but not quite, hope.

  ‘Those were Carl’s exact words to me,’ Eleanor replied.

  ‘Would your husband tell me what he heard, do you think?’

  Eleanor shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Farrell, I don’t think he would, no. He’s happy for me to pass the information on to you, but I think he would regard talking to you as some sort of betrayal of his role as a government clerk. I could ask him, but I’m sure he won’t.’

  Flora said, ‘Eleanor, tell Kitty who Carl believes he overheard.’

  ‘Oh, yes. He couldn’t be sure, but he thinks it was Sergeant Coombes.’

  Kitty arrived at the Camp just before eleven in the morning, and told the guards on the gate she had urgent news for Sergeant Coombes about one of the rebels still in hiding after the Eureka uprising. When she asked to speak to Coombes at the office, however, she learned that he had departed first thing that morning for Bendigo and would not be back for a week. Swallowing her disappointment and frustration, she rode out of the gates again, but instead of heading back to Lilac Cottage, she went north through the Old Gravel Pits towards Black Hill.

  Soon she came to Binda’s camp, where the three elderly Watha Wurrung men still sat around the fire as though they hadn’t moved since the last time she was there. This time, however, the women and children were also present, except for Binda, who was busy looking after Will and Molly. She dismounted inelegantly from her side-saddle and looped Finn’s reins over the branches of a wattle. Two of the old men were staring morosely into the flames, while Barega was painting a pair of sticks red and white while at the same time ignoring a small child attempting to climb onto his thin shoulders.

  ‘Good morning, Barega,’ Kitty said as she approached the fire.

  He glanced up from his work and gave a perfunctory nod. ‘Mornin’, Missus.’

  ‘I’m loo
king for Warrun. Is he about?’

  ‘Hunting. Be back soon.’

  Kitty stifled a sigh of frustration; ‘soon’, she knew, could be anything up to a week.

  Barega grimaced as the child gave his wiry grey hair a particularly energetic yank, and barked something to the group of women sitting a short distance from the fire. A girl hurried across, giggling, and snatched up the infant. ‘Can wait if you want,’ he offered.

  Kitty brightened: Warrun couldn’t be that far away, then. She gathered her skirts around her legs and perched on a log, wrapping her arms around her knees and wishing she had the guts to go about in her chemise like these women did. The heat today was abominable.

  Presently Barega said, ‘Binda say your man gone to the Dream-time.’

  Kitty looked at him. ‘Perhaps not.’

  Barega nodded, as though this sort of ambiguity concerning a man’s corporeal and spiritual status were perfectly normal.

  ‘I mean, I’m not sure if he really is dead,’ Kitty elucidated.

  ‘But maybe lost?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Barega dabbed at a splodge of red paint in his beard. ‘And you want Warrun to track?’

  ‘If he will.’

  ‘You pay him, he will.’

  ‘I’ll pay him whatever he asks.’

  What Warrun asked, when he turned up an hour later with three possums tied together and slung around his neck like a fur stole, was five pounds and Kitty’s panama hat. Kitty gave him the money immediately, but, in the interests of staving off sunstroke, promised him the hat at the end of the day.

  She had to wait, doing her best to hide her impatience, while he ate a meal, then put a bridle on one of the two rather sinewy horses hobbled in the shade of a stand of eucalypts, but finally they were off and heading back into town.

  Passing by Lilac Cottage they saddled up McCool, whom Kitty then led out to Malakoff’s Lead and the claim, on which the crew had now returned to work. Telling Warrun to wait out of sight, she rode along the lead until she came to the shaft, and Gideon and Mick who were sitting on the mullock heap surrounding it, apparently taking a break from shovelling washdirt. Daniel, thank God, was nowhere in sight.

  Clearly surprised by her appearance, Mick skidded down the heap and took hold of Finn’s bridle. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, everything’s fine, Mick. But I do need to see Tahi.’

  ‘He’s down the shaft.’ Mick squinted up at her. ‘You sure nothing’s wrong? You look…I dunno. Fidgety?’

  Kitty thought, no, Mick, try reinvigorated. Resuscitated? Galvanised? Desperate with hope? She tried to compose her features. ‘No, it’s Amber. She’s upset and she’ll only talk to Tahi. You know what she can be like. I’m sorry, but I’ll have to borrow him for a little while.’ She winced inwardly at the lie, but there was no way around the subterfuge.

  Mick signalled to Gideon, who halted the whip horse and shouted down the shaft for Tahi to come up to the surface. He slapped the horse on the rump, it set off again and a few minutes later Tahi appeared riding in a half-full bucket. His face and arms covered with grime, he climbed out looking mystified. His hair was tied back with a leather thong and he was shirtless.

  ‘Kitty wants to talk to you,’ Mick explained off-handedly, now that it was clear there was no real emergency.

  Tahi dipped his cupped hands into a bucket of water and tipped some over his head, then scrubbed at his face, hands and arms.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, Tahi,’ Kitty said, ‘but Amber is upset. She said she will only speak to you.’

  Tahi tried valiantly not to look thrilled. He pulled his shirt on over his head, shoved the tails into his trousers, and took McCool’s reins from Kitty. ‘Is she at Lilac Cottage?’

  ‘Yes, she is.’ Kitty replied blandly.

  As they mounted, Kitty said to Mick, ‘I’ll have him back as soon as possible.’

  Mick shrugged, said, ‘Don’t worry if it’s too late. No point,’ then picked up his shovel and went back to filling the cart with washdirt.

  ‘Is Amber upset about her father, Auntie?’ Tahi asked as he and Kitty trotted back along Malakoff’s Lead towards the Main Road.

  Kitty felt an unpleasant pang of guilt at using him like this, but deliberately squashed it. ‘Actually, Tahi, I’m sorry, love, but I lied. Amber’s fine. She’s working in the shop. It’s you I need to talk to.’

  At the word ‘lied’ his head whipped towards her, and Kitty glimpsed in his eyes a reflection of all the angry and frightened things Amber must have said to him about her mother. But there was something else in Tahi’s eyes, too. Guilt?

  ‘It’s all right, I haven’t lost my mind,’ Kitty assured him. ‘Hawk told me you and Daniel found Rian’s shirt. Is that right?’

  Warily, Tahi concurred.

  ‘Do you think you could take me there? To where you found it?’

  Smarting at not being able to ride to Amber’s rescue, Tahi became slightly sulky. ‘Probably. But why, Auntie?’

  Kitty reined Finn to a halt, and McCool automatically followed suit. ‘I need this to be a secret between us, Tahi. I don’t want anyone else to know, not just yet. Can you do that?’

  Tahi nodded, opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it again.

  ‘Good.’ Kitty raised her hand and waved at Warrun, waiting at the turn-off to the Malakoff Lead. He kicked his horse into a trot and approached, bouncing sloppily up and down like a sack of spuds.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Tahi asked suspiciously.

  ‘Warrun, Binda’s nephew or grandson, I’m not sure which. He’s going to track for us,’ Kitty replied.

  She inspected Tahi’s face for signs of censure, or at the very least indications that he thought she had lost the balance of her mind, but to her surprise there were none. Instead he said, ‘You still believe he’s alive somewhere?’

  ‘I do, yes.’

  Tahi simply nodded again, inclined his head in a gesture of greeting towards Warrun, then started off in a southerly direction.

  They crossed the Yarrowee about a mile further downstream. Diggers still lined the banks with their cradles and long toms, but did not cluster there like flies as they did closer to the township to the north. The trio followed the river for two miles more as it turned slightly to the south-west, then, where a small tributary branched off and almost immediately disappeared into the ground, left its shallow gurgling and splashing behind and struck out west.

  Finally, after they had ridden—according to Warrun—exactly one and a half miles directly into the sun, Tahi reined in and said, ‘I think this is it.’

  There was nothing to see, so far as Kitty could tell. Low scrub, a few rocks, tinder-dry grass, dirt—nothing to suggest that a man’s life had ended here beneath a pack of scrapping dogs.

  Warrun slid off his horse. ‘Whereabouts?’

  Kitty looked questioningly at Tahi, who also dismounted and began to walk carefully about until he came to a bare patch of dirt. ‘It was here, I think.’

  Warrun joined him, then hitched up his trousers and squatted, inspecting the ground as though reading a book. He rubbed his fingers in the soil and raised them to his nose. ‘Blood,’ he said, and stood up.

  Kitty’s heart lurched.

  Warrun closed his eyes and sniffed again, then prowled about, his bare feet making no sound at all as he stepped on grass and dried leaves and small branches. Eventually he declared, ‘Dingo shit, but old.’

  Kitty found she was holding her breath, and made herself let it out lest she faint and fall off Finn. She removed her panama and fanned herself with it vigorously as sweat trickled down her face. There was no noise out here, save the buzz of flies and the odd bird call.

  ‘Tracks, Warrun, are there any tracks?’ she prompted.

  ‘Hold your horses, Missus,’ he replied tersely.

  Tahi shot Kitty a look to see if she was going to object to the blackfellah’s rudeness.

  But she didn’t. She would wait for him all aft
ernoon and night if she had to.

  There was no need, however, as he soon raised his hand and beckoned to her. She dismounted and walked across to him. Tahi followed.

  ‘See?’ Warrun said, pointing. ‘Feet marks.’

  Kitty couldn’t see anything.

  ‘Ours?’ Tahi suggested. ‘When we were here the other day?’

  ‘How many days?’ Warrun demanded.

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Then not these ones. These older, eh?’

  ‘How many feet?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘Six,’ Warrun said after a moment. ‘No, eight.’

  ‘Eight people?’

  ‘Eight feet. Belong four people. Three good, one sick.’

  Kitty started to feel sick herself, from excitement and from fear of what might have happened to Rian. ‘Can we follow them, the tracks?’ she asked, and was startled at the harsh, raw sound of her own voice.

  Warrun didn’t reply, but returned to his horse, grazing unenthusiastically on parched grass, and jerked on its reins to make it follow him.

  In single file they walked, leading their horses, in an easterly direction, and it became clear they were heading back towards the Yarrowee. They met the river about half a mile further downstream than where they had left it. They crossed, and Warrun picked up the trail on the other side until it turned into tracks left by the wheels of a cart.

  The cart tracks were fairly obvious, but Kitty had been able to see nothing at all of the tracks made by foot.

  Warrun vaulted onto his horse and announced, ‘That’s it. Give us me hat?’

  ‘What?’ Kitty was shocked. For some reason she had imagined that Warrun would lead her all the way to Rian. But of course he wouldn’t. He was a tracker, not a clairvoyant. In truth the tracks could belong to anyone and could have been made at any time since the rains had stopped. She felt her heart, and her hopes, plummet.

  ‘Follow this track long way ’til it join with the Melbourne Road. They gone to Melbourne, eh?’ Warrun said cheerily.

  Kitty passed him her panama, and watched dispiritedly as he trotted off.

  ‘Auntie?’

  Kitty hoisted herself into her hated saddle and hooked her knee around the pommel. ‘What is it, Tahi?’