Fortune's Son

by Jennifer Scoullar

  ‘Mistakenly cleared,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You told us yourself of his guilt.’

  Guilty of more than killing sheep, thought Luke.

  ‘Would you entirely trust him if provoked?’

  Luke shook his head, lost in a haze of misery and confusion. To lose both Belle and Bear at once. Whatever he’d done, whatever mistakes he’d made in life, he didn’t deserve this.

  ‘Perhaps enough time has passed.’ He was thinking aloud. ‘I’ll go to Hobart, see my family.’

  ‘I thought you knew . . .?’

  Luke squeezed his palms against his eyes. What now?

  ‘Your mother and sister no longer live in Hobart. After your father’s death, Daniel found them work at Ruyton Girls’ School in Melbourne. The principal is a friend.’

  Melbourne? All those times he’d daydreamed of a joyful return to his Hobart home – but he had no home. Not any more.

  ‘Mrs Campbell, tell me. What were the circumstances of my father’s death?’

  She hesitated, took a moment to smooth her dress. ‘Thomas and Daniel were riding for Hobart to attend your trial. His horse fell . . .’ She put a hand on Luke’s shoulder. He shrugged it away. ‘Daniel swears he didn’t suffer.’

  The ground pitched beneath Luke’s feet. His father. His strong, loyal, loving father. Dead, for years. Dead, because of him. It made sense now: the long years of imprisonment. Losing Bear, losing Belle. He deserved every bad thing the world could throw at him. There was only one person he hated more than himself, one person even more to blame for tearing his family apart. Henry Abbott.

  Elizabeth pressed a wad of pound notes into his hand. He hurled it away as if it burned his skin.

  ‘I only thought . . .’

  ‘What did you think?’ His voice rose to a shout. ‘That I was for sale?’ Elizabeth shrank back. ‘I’m leaving because it’s best for Belle, not because of your goddamned money. No one will ever care for your daughter more than I do.’

  Luke returned to the gallows, cleaving the rest of the carcass with great, angry strokes of his blade. Then he packed away, washed up and went to his little room in the cart shed. Bear wasn’t there – most likely off with Sasha. Luke desperately wanted an opportunity to say goodbye.

  The tigers dozed in their shed. The devils slept in their log. All had their place. All except him. He dared not think of how badly he’d miss them. Luke packed his things and lay on his bunk to wait. Knuckling back tears. Hollow with grief.

  Hours later, a knock came at the door. Davey, the stableboy – no friend of his – held the reins of a tall, dapple-grey thoroughbred. She was a new arrival at the homestead, freshly broken, still a little wild. Luke guessed Davey had deliberately chosen the mare to test him. Provisions spilled from her saddlebags.

  ‘Bill told me to saddle Sheba for ya. Going into town?’

  With a curt nod, Luke motioned him away. Strapping swag to saddle, Luke soothed the skittish horse with a low voice. He liked how her ears flicked back and forth to the rhythm of his words. An intelligent one.

  A barking chorus heralded the arrival of a visitor. Luke swung into the saddle and cantered to the gate, glad to hear the dogs were back. Harrison rode in with Scruffy chasing at his heels. He stepped down from his horse, threw his reins to Davey and strode to the house.

  Angus was riding an old dun carthorse up the drive. Luke dismounted and knelt down to pat the dogs, his heart aching when Bear put a paw on his knee. Scruffy squirmed onto his favourite position on Luke’s lap. When Angus reached the gate, he greeted his young friend with a broad smile on his weathered face. He looked older, thinner. Luke wondered how much he knew.

  ‘Finally come to your senses, have you, lad? Ready to join the land of the living, ’stead of hiding out here in these here hills with mangy vermin for company?’ He clambered from his horse. ‘How are them wolves going? You’d make a pretty penny selling them. Zoos are paying good money for them things.’

  Luke didn’t know what to say. Angus clearly thought he was leaving of his own volition. He supposed he’d better play along. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d maybe put me up in town for a bit. I’ll not be long out of work.’

  ‘Neither you will be, Luke, neither you will. There’s plenty of jobs for willing men down the mine.’ Luke flinched at the suggestion. ‘That black mongrel ain’t coming with you, is he? By jeepers he gives me the willies.’ Luke shook his head. ‘Thank God for that. Well, give an old bloke a cuppa, will you? I’m parched.’

  Luke took Angus around to the shearers’ quarters where a big billy sat permanently on the boil. As they drank their tea, Elizabeth came by and thanked Angus for answering her summons so promptly.

  ‘When Luke decided to move into town, naturally we thought of you,’ she said. ‘Understand, Mr McLeod, that he must still be known to all as your nephew, Adam. Henry Abbott still offers a reward for his capture. There must be no slip-ups.’

  ‘As God is my witness, ma’am, I’ll protect the lad. You have my word.’

  Elizabeth took hold of Angus’s hand. ‘Bless you, Mr McLeod. Goodbye, Luke, and good luck. You two better be off if you mean to reach Hills End before dark.’

  Angus gulped down the last of his tea and smacked his lips. ‘Seems like the missus here’s given us our marching orders. Come on then, lad.’

  Luke put Bear away in the tigers’ pen, stopping briefly to fondle his massive head. When would he next see his dog? How would he manage without him?

  Bear sensed Luke’s sadness and paced up and down the wire, whining. Wrenching himself away, Luke mounted Sheba and joined Angus for the ride to town. What about Daniel? What about Belle? He hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye.

  CHAPTER 21

  Life at Molly Swift’s cottage in the dreary miners-camp end of town was very different from life at Binburra. Luke missed Daniel and Bear and beautiful Belle. He missed the elegant homestead, the well-stocked library, the nursery of native seedlings and cuttings. It was like going to prison all over again. Torn from those he loved, denied the satisfying, intellectual life he craved. Yet he never once regretted his decision to leave.

  Daniel came to Molly’s time and time again, begging him to return.

  ‘Forgive me, Luke, for keeping the circumstances of your father’s death from you. In seeking to spare you, it seems I’ve caused you more pain.’

  Each time Luke stubbornly refused to tell Daniel why he’d left. How could he return to Binburra if he was a threat to Belle?

  His one remaining pleasure was to ride Sheba into the mountains. Daniel had given him the mare, who lived in a dusty little paddock behind the house. Paying for her feed swallowed up an alarming portion of Luke’s small wage, but he refused to sell her as Angus suggested. She alone afforded him some freedom.

  With the discovery of gold, Hills End had grown into a town of almost two thousand people, not including the prospectors and trappers living rough in the hills. It boasted a row of shops, including a blacksmith, butcher, wheelwright, post office, bakery and two general stores. There were plans to build a school on land beside the railway line. Hills End also had a police station. Luke had seen his own Wanted poster on the noticeboard outside, offering a fifty pound reward. The grainy photo taken when he first went to prison was thankfully unrecognisable. He barely knew the wild-eyed boy himself.

  Molly’s cottage stood in a row of overcrowded slums built on a narrow, rutted road on the bare hill above the mine. Well-heeled members of the Hills End community – tradesmen, merchants and mine managers – lived in the lower part of town. Houses were larger there, the streets broader and cleaner. Prevailing winds blew past these dwellings to the mine, sparing their residents the clouds of filthy smoke and fumes belching from the smelter chimneys.

  Luke wasn’t so lucky. He lived in the back room of Molly Swift’s rented cottage, with a dark, depressing view over the mine. Angus had originally occupied the poky space, but had been promoted to the main bedroom. Molly was accommodating enough, but, if
the truth be known, Luke felt a little jealous of her. Angus was his last remaining friend in the world and now Molly took up most of his time. However unfair it might be, she made a convenient scapegoat for what was wrong with his life.

  His board was three shillings a week, a sum that Angus had covered until Luke found work. Luke struggled against it, seeking all sorts of other positions, but eventually he agreed to join Angus down the mine. Most townsfolk owed their pay packets, directly or indirectly, to Henry Abbott.

  In the past few months Luke had learned more than he ever wanted to know about mining. The earth set up a great many barriers against those who sought to rob her of her riches. The men worked in huge, unstable underground chambers known as stopes. Massive staves of timber reinforced the stopes, tunnels and shafts. Penetrating these rock walls was difficult, dirty and dangerous work. Miners drilled holes with primitive augers, creating dense dust clouds. They packed the holes with dynamite, lit fuses and retreated to what they hoped would be a safe distance. Detonation followed: a moment of tearing stone, deafening shock-waves and flying rocks.

  Unexploded charges could be set off by a man drilling his next round of holes, killing or crippling him with the loss of limbs or eyes. Sometimes fuses ran too quickly, allowing no time to escape the blast; sometimes too slowly, causing unexpected detonations as miners returned to the job.

  The dark tunnels were death-traps of falling rocks, pools of water deep enough to drown in and pockets of poison gas. In this filthy, unforgiving environment, laden with rotting timbers and human waste, even small abrasions could develop into life-threatening infections.

  Carting his tools with him, Luke negotiated the labyrinth with only an oil lamp fastened to a helmet. Each miner received three candles for his ten-hour shift underground. Careless use of lamps and candles could leave men stranded in total darkness.

  Luke was started as a mucker. After rock was blasted from the stone face, teams of muckers used sledgehammers to pulverise the boulders and shovelled loose rubble into ore cars. Loaded cars were pushed manually to the main shaft, hoisted out in a cage and delivered to the smelter. Muckers were considered unskilled labour, earning even less than the miners, suffering worse privations, forced to meet brutal daily quotas or risk losing their jobs.

  Luke hated everything about his new life. Descending the shaft in the clanging cage was like being buried alive – a descent into hell. Ringing shift bells sounded like death knells. Roaring machines assaulted his ears and he could barely breathe the choking air. After his months spent in the pristine beauty of a vast wilderness, the mine was pure purgatory – an unforgiving, claustrophobic world of gloom and confusion.

  The darkness of the mine entered his mind, his soul. It extinguished hope and pity. Luke knew the mountain to be a live and malevolent being, resenting the presence of man. At times the ground heaved and buckled beneath his feet, as if the earth meant to spit him out. And as Luke broke his back loading cars, as he struggled to reinforce rotting timbers in the dark, as he smashed the dull ore to smithereens, his hatred for Henry Abbott grew.

  Autumn was turning to winter. High in Binburra’s ranges, the beech trees would be turning from green to gold, but there was no way of marking the seasons underground. Angus and Luke sat near the main shaft one afternoon, eating a meagre meal of bread and cheese. Angus slumped stiffly, back hunched against the damp tunnel wall, his body periodically racked with rasping coughs.

  Lately, each surface streamed with water, and the clammy humidity sapped everyone’s strength. No matter how cold it was up top, it always remained uncomfortably warm in the mine, getting hotter the deeper they went. Sweat poured from the miners’ bodies. They drank gallons of water to ward off dehydration and to soothe their burning throats.

  Luke peered at Angus in the dim light. The old man seemed completely spent, but his shift wouldn’t finish for hours. ‘Thought you said you were too old for this job?’ said Luke. ‘Whatever happened to opening a store with Molly?’

  Luke had broached the subject before, but always received evasive answers. Right now Angus was too tired to avoid the question – and to remember not to use his young friend’s real name.

  ‘That’s still the plan, Luke. Still the plan. I just need a bit more capital first. Molly thinks we’ll have enough in six months or so.’

  Luke’s knuckles tightened around his water flask. ‘Are you telling me that Molly put you up to this? She sends you down this flaming hole each day so that she can have her shop? That’s more than a woman has a right to expect of a man.’

  ‘Hold on. Don’t get your back up. Fact is, I love Molly, and if we’re ever going to have that store, the money’s got to come from somewhere. I’ll not leave her to go traipsing all over the countryside trapping again, so this is me next best option. Don’t you go blaming Molly. You know what they say about the men who come to this town, don’t you, Luke? The mine gets them in the end, no matter what they say at the start. Just take a gander at yourself.’

  A nearby miner looked curiously at them. Luke wished Angus could remember to call him Adam. On the main point he grudgingly admitted that Angus was right. They’d both been determined to avoid the mine, but here they were anyway.

  At the end of their shifts they rode the cage up the shaft. The crowd of weary men dressed in filthy, dripping rags emerged squinting into the cold winter sunshine. In twelve hours they’d do it all again. Mr Dickens, the mine foreman, met the men at the gate and gestured for them to gather around.

  ‘You lot need to look sharp tomorrow. We’re expecting an important visitor. Edward Abbott, Sir Henry’s son. He’ll be inspecting the mine. Seems Sir Henry’s keen for his boy to learn the ropes. I’ll be escorting him personal, I will, and don’t want any cock-ups. You blokes better be on your best behaviour. Show him what a smooth operation we run. I want your word.’

  The dog-tired men murmured their assent. All except Luke. He snorted with disgust and marched away.

  Angus hurried to catch him up. ‘What’re you trying to do? Get yourself fired?’

  There’s nothing I’d like more, he wanted to say, but kept his peace. Luke planned to go to Melbourne to see his mother and sister, bring them some money in an attempt to atone for his father’s death. He needed the work as much as Angus did. They were both slaves to Abbott’s paltry wage. Now he was expected to put on a happy face for the benefit of Henry’s snivelling son.

  Belle socialised with the Abbotts. She’d told him about her friendship with Edward, assured him that Edward was not like his father. But Luke already despised him. He strode on ahead of Angus without speaking, resentment rising in his breast like a bad case of indigestion.

  That evening Luke found it difficult to be civil to Molly. He sat at the dinner table, stern-faced. Angus’s dry cough punctuated the silence. What sort of woman would send an old man down a mine? Luke had lost his own father. He’d pushed Daniel away. He didn’t want to lose Angus too.

  Luke picked at the sinewy mutton and roast potatoes on his plate. He’d fared better living rough at the hut. Prime lamb each day of the week. Here, the humble spud in various guises formed the mainstay for every meal. He’d forgotten how often in prison, with nothing but cold, thin soup and mouldy bread night after night, he’d craved roast potatoes. Their salty, crisp skins and warm, fluffy middles.

  Molly sat down and started on her own small meal. A thin woman with bright red hair, pale freckly skin and a pinched bird-like face. At thirty-one she was twenty years Angus’s junior. She sat quietly eating her food and trying to ignore Luke’s obvious dissatisfaction with his.

  ‘Angus gives you all his pay, doesn’t he?’ said Luke. ‘I’d have thought you could cook up a bit of beef now and then.’

  ‘Don’t you speak to Molly like that,’ warned Angus.

  ‘I can’t eat this muck.’ Luke shoved back his chair and left the table.

  Molly knotted her fingers together as Angus tried to apologise for Luke.

  ‘Don’t mind Ada
m. He’s tired, is all.’

  But the harm was done. Molly didn’t like the boy. If Adam wasn’t related to Angus she’d have put him out by now.

  She cleared away his barely touched meal, returning it to the pot on the stove. Times were hard and she wasn’t about to waste good food. The money from Angus’s last trapping trip sat in a biscuit tin under her bed. Soon she’d buy a shop far, far away from the misery of Hills End.

  Every Friday, Molly added half of Angus’s meagre weekly wage to this nest egg. She found it difficult to run the household on the remainder. True, she now received Adam’s three shillings a week, but he ate more than his board was worth. Molly scowled, recalling an argument over her hens in the coop out the back. Adam had named them, later refusing to throttle one for Sunday lunch, even when she pointed out they were old and barely laying at all. She’d had to do it herself.

  Meat was a luxury. Molly worked hard in her garden to supplement the table with fresh vegetables, but the polluted air damaged her crops. Except for potatoes. She had a green thumb for growing potatoes.

  On top of her financial woes, Molly worried constantly about Angus’s health. She knew the mine was no place for a man his age, with or without the ever-present threat of an accident. Molly always murmured a quiet prayer when he left for his shift. And, as she busied herself during the day with broom, dustpan and mop, in a constant battle against the grime from the mine, this anxiety never left her.

  Molly had grown to love Angus. He was a kinder man than her husband, who’d sickened and died two years earlier. She didn’t know whether it was the mine or their filthy living conditions that had killed him. Diseases were commonplace in the town: typhoid and measles, smallpox and diphtheria. Fresh milk was always suspect. As a child in a logging settlement, she’d watched her family die, one by one, from tuberculosis contracted from the milk of their own much-loved house cow. The street had no sewage system or rubbish collection. Molly dumped her rubbish in a foul culvert out front of the house. A stinking earth pit in the backyard served as a toilet.