by Peter Watt
SIX
Near closing time in the depot Luke heard the raised voice of a man and instinctively knew Emma was in trouble. He had just completed final preparations for his journey up the track to the Palmer River and sat on the edge of a bale in the room behind the store. He was packing his swag when the vaguely familiar voice of the angry man drifted to him.
Without hesitation Luke was on his feet. In seconds he stood in the depot, confronting a big, broad-shouldered man who was towering over Emma. ‘You know when she will return,’ he shouted down at her, turning with a frown to face Luke. ‘You!’ he uttered in his absolute surprise at seeing the American prospector. ‘Thought you were long out of the colony.’
‘O’Keefe you goddamned son of a bitch. I was kind of hoping you were dead by now.’
O’Keefe stepped away from an ashen-faced Emma whose trembling hands went to her face in shock. She sensed the meeting of the two men could only lead to bloodshed. ‘A few have tried,’ he snarled. ‘But I’m still here, as you can see.’
‘I also see you are still good at standing over helpless women,’ Luke replied tensely. ‘You ought to try and do the same to a man.’
‘You call yourself a man,’ O’Keefe snorted as he shook his head. ‘You need a gun to back up your yellow streak.’
The blood drained from Luke’s face at the insult to his courage. O’Keefe was around ten years younger than himself and much more powerfully built and Luke had no illusions about the possible outcome of a hand-to-hand fight between them.
But the challenge had cornered Luke who knew he was facing a deadly situation where his opponent would be the probable winner. He had only one hope, albeit a slight one. ‘You still carry a knife?’ he questioned as he slid his big bladed bowie from the inside of his knee-length boot.
O’Keefe grinned as he produced a double-edged blade from his waistcoat. Momentarily frozen by the speed and intensity of the confrontation Emma finally snapped to fling herself at O’Keefe’s knife arm but he flicked her away as if she were nothing more than an annoying insect. Emma stumbled backwards and slammed into a pile of pots and pans sending them rattling in all directions. She knew she must fetch Henry to stop the fight before blood was spilled. But, as the two men circled, oblivious to her presence, O’Keefe blocked the doorway. Trapped, all she could do was watch helplessly. O’Keefe was grinning, taunting Luke who crouched slightly to balance himself on the balls of his feet.
‘Vot is das?’ a voice boomed from behind O’Keefe. ‘Vot do you play games like kinder?’ Luke let his attention shift for a split second to glimpse the figure in black framed in the doorway of the store. ‘Mien vife and I come to buy goods. Not see two grown men fight,’ the man in black with a great black bushy beard continued in a voice loud enough to shake the mightiest of gum trees loose of its leaves.
O’Keefe was poised uncertainly with the knife menacingly extended in his right hand. Luke could see that O’Keefe appeared unsettled as the voice behind him was an unknown quantity. Deftly, he slid the knife inside the sleeve of his coat, and turned to face the person who had spoken, a man around his own age, size and build. It was obvious from his accent that he was German and when their eyes locked it was also obvious that the stranger was not a man who displayed any fear. Without a word, O’Keefe pushed past the stranger and a pretty blonde woman who stood behind him and Luke slid the bowie back inside his boot.
‘Thank you sir,’ Emma said as the colour returned to her face. ‘You have arrived at a very opportune time.’
She flashed Luke a look of concern and he returned a brief smile for her benefit although he felt far from happy. He had come close to killing Kate’s husband – or being killed by him.
‘Ach. It is nothing,’ the man shrugged.
The pretty blonde woman smiled wanly at Emma as she took her place beside the big man in black.
‘I am Missus Emma James,’ Emma said. ‘And may I introduce Mister Luke Tracy from America whose life you may have saved by your fortunate arrival.’
Luke rankled at Emma’s presumption that he would be the one to be killed in a knife fight. It smacked at his male pride. But he said nothing and extended his hand to the man in black.
‘I am Pastor Otto Werner and this is meine vife Caroline,’ he said accepting Luke’s hand. ‘Vee are of the Lutheran missionaries sent out here.’
‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ Luke said shaking his hand. ‘I hope you don’t get the wrong idea about things around here. What happened was just a little misunderstanding between myself and the gentleman who just left. Nothing to do with the service in the store.’
Otto smiled knowingly at the American and released his powerful grip. ‘I am sure vot you say is right Herr Tracy. I am sure this does not happen every day.’ He turned to his wife and spoke in German. She smiled and nodded to Luke. ‘Meine vife, her English is still learning,’ Otto said. ‘Vee haf come here to buy supplies. Vee are going to a country man’s farm. His name is Schmidt and I believe his place is about fifty miles south of Maytown. Do you know him?’ he asked.
Luke shook his head and looked at Emma.
‘I am sorry Pastor,’ she replied. ‘But I don’t think I can help you. I don’t know the man. You could possibly ask the Native Mounted Police at their barracks. They do a lot of patrolling in that country.’
The Lutheran pastor smiled and shook his head. ‘I haf already asked. They say they do not know him. But vee vill find him,’ he sighed. ‘God vill guide meine vife and I to Herr Schmidt.’
Emma frowned. She was about to warn the pastor about the country south of Maytown. It was a dangerous land where a newcomer could easily get lost – or speared. But she refrained when she saw the set expression on the bearded face. He was a man of God and she sensed such warnings would be irrelevant to his mission. Instead she gave her attention to his list of supplies.
When they left the store Luke spoke.
‘What did O’Keefe want with you?’ he asked her. ‘I heard him hollering. I was worried he might do you some harm.’
‘He has been here before,’ Emma sighed as she pushed back a lock of hair from her face. ‘He accused me of not telling him the truth about Kate’s whereabouts, said I knew where she was and wouldn’t tell him. But I told him the truth. Kate is somewhere on the track to the Palmer.’
Luke frowned. ‘If he returns tonight I want you to fetch me immediately,’ he said. ‘No need to get Henry tangled up in this.’
Gently Emma touched Luke on the arm. She could see that the American was protecting her husband from the likes of O’Keefe. ‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘I will do that if Mister O’Keefe returns to the store this evening.’
Luke nodded. He felt guilty that he would be leaving at first light to search for Kate. It didn’t seem right to leave Emma and Henry to face the man who was Kate’s husband.
O’Keefe walked away from the store into the gathering night. He cursed the American’s good luck being saved from what he perceived as the certainty of death on his blade. Whoever the stranger was who had intervened had an air about him of a man not to be intimidated. And the big man in black might have sided with the American had the James woman called on him for help. Not that it mattered. He would settle with Tracy at a later time. For now he had a business to run and more girls to recruit to his brothel. Given time – and the right bully boys – he would be able to open a second premises to accommodate the extra girls coming up from down south.
The night was dark and O’Keefe turned off the main street busy with the crowds of miners in search of a good time. The back alley took him into a narrow lane bordered by a Chinese joss house and the rear of his own establishment.
‘O’Keefe!’ a voice commanded, just a little nervously.
A smallish man stepped from the shadows of the joss house. O’Keefe stopped in his tracks and turned to confront him. He sneered when he saw who had called his name. ‘You have some kind of problem I might be able to help you with,’ he challenge
d insolently, letting the deadly knife slip into his hand from the sleeve.
The smaller man stood apprehensively in the shadows licking his lips as he watched the burly brothel keeper advance towards him. ‘My missus is up there,’ he croaked, and O’Keefe could see that the man was both drunk and frightened.
‘I know you?’ he frowned as he tested the grip on the bone handle of the knife.
‘You took my missus to work for you when I was down on my luck,’ the man said backing away from O’Keefe. ‘She won’t come home with me.’
‘Then that’s your bad luck mister,’ O’Keefe said, baring his teeth. ‘She’s with a real man now.’
Suddenly the smaller man stopped backing away and stood very still in the shadows. From somewhere the two men could hear a woman’s raucous laughter and the cursing of a drunken miner. Sweat beaded the forehead of the man in the shadows. ‘No O’Keefe,’ he said in a strangely disembodied voice. ‘I think that’s your bad luck.’
SEVEN
Captain Morrison Mort was not a man who reflected on the vagaries of life. If he had been, standing in the office of Granville White, he might have reflected that it had once been the office of David Macintosh.
That had been over a decade earlier and life as captain of the Macintosh barque had appealed to his health. At the beginning of his fourth decade of life he was tanned and fit with curling blond hair and pale blue eyes that had somehow captured the essence of sun and sea.
The office had changed little from the time that he had been given command of the Osprey. His employer Granville White sat in a big leather chair with his back to a window that overlooked the busy docks below. Granville now controlled the financial management of the vast Macintosh empire of shipping, property and stockmarket shares. In his mid-thirties he was a rather handsome man. A finely boned face and a receding hairline gave him an aristocratic appearance that women found appealing. And he carried with an arrogant ease an aura of genteel wealth and power. ‘Welcome home Captain Mort,’ Granville said with more formality than warmth. He rose and briefly extended his hand across the desk between them. ‘Please be seated.’
Mort swept back his long navy blue jacket and sat down in one of the smaller leather chairs opposite his employer. ‘Good to be back Mister White,’ he mumbled without much conviction.
Sydney was not a place where he ever felt safe. Not since those years earlier when the Irish lawyer Daniel Duffy had attempted to indict him for murder. Only the power of the Macintosh name and their considerable resources had saved him from swinging on the gallows at Darlinghurst Gaol. As far as he knew Daniel Duffy was still active in attempting to bring him to justice. ‘Your telegram I got in Brisbane said you had an urgent job back here.’ Mort was not a man to mince with polite formalities. The meeting was about business and he got right to it.
A slight frown creased Granville’s features. He lived with the genteel formalities of colonial society and Mort’s abruptness was an affront to the social niceties of idle chatter as a preamble to business. ‘You have a new assignment,’ he said as he leaned back in his chair and puffed on a Cuban cigar. He had not bothered to offer one to the Captain who he knew did not indulge in alcohol or tobacco. The Captain was a man of spartan habits. ‘The Osprey has been chartered by Baron von Fellmann as soon as he reaches our fair shores.’
‘We are doing well with the kanakas,’ Mort began in protest. ‘The last shipment to Brisbane . . . ’
‘I accept that Captain,’ Granville said, cutting the protest short with a wave of his cigar. ‘But the Baron is prepared to compensate us generously for any loss of revenue. And besides, he is my brother-in law,’ he added with a hint of sarcasm. ‘One does not ignore my sister’s requests.’
‘Where does he want me to sail?’ Mort grunted. He had resigned himself to obeying the obvious command.
‘Cooktown,’ Granville replied. ‘After that only the Baron knows. But wherever he decides to sail you are to obey without question. He is, after all, paying for the charter.’
Mort raised his eyebrows. The assignment had an air of something wrong about it. Not that he particularly cared – so long as he was paid and commanded his ship. ‘The Baron going after gold up on the Palmer?’ he asked conversationally.
‘Whatever the Baron’s intentions are will not concern us,’ Granville answered with a scowl. ‘The less questions you ask the better you will get on with the Baron.’
Mort nodded his understanding. ‘What I have to know Mister White,’ he said, ‘is what stores I will need and sailing times.’
Granville took a long puff from his cigar and blew a halo of grey smoke into the still air of the office. ‘George Hobbs will have all the answers to your questions,’ he replied. ‘You can talk to him on the way out.’
Mort accepted that the brief meeting was at an end and started to rise from his chair. But Granville resumed speaking and Mort sat back down. ‘Something of a somewhat disturbing nature has been brought to my attention in recent times,’ Granville said. ‘It appears your first mate Mister Horton has been saying things around The Rocks when he was on his last leave to Sydney. Things that are better left in the past.’
Mort felt a touch uneasy about the comment. He knew Jack Horton was a man who liked to partake of rum in the hotels around his old territory of The Rocks. When he was drunk he had a habit of becoming boastful of his adventures in the South Seas. ‘What sort of things?’ he asked.
‘Things about that papist bastard Michael Duffy. And about my cousin David. Hints that they met with foul play.’
‘Duffy was killed by the Maori in New Zealand,’ Mort replied dismissively. ‘And Mister Macintosh was killed by Chief Tiwi over five years ago. Got nothing to do with us.’
‘Duffy I grant,’ Granville agreed. ‘But my cousin’s demise might cause further questions to be asked, certainly in regard to the circumstances surrounding his death. My mother-in-law despises me enough to use her position to make things very uncomfortable for me. She might get it into her head to use her considerable resources to resurrect her own investigation.’
Mort knew that Lady Enid Macintosh believed that her beloved son had been murdered by himself on the orders of Granville White. Her hatred for them both was no secret in the company circles. Only the fact that Granville was her son-in-law – and so ably managed the vast financial empire – kept him temporarily safe from her wrath. But if something could be proved . . .
‘Horton has a big mouth,’ Mort agreed. ‘It needs shutting.’
‘Good!’ Granville said. ‘I am sure you can pension him off with an appropriate incentive to ensure his silence. You talk to him and settle the matter of his severance with the company. I am sure you can find a new first mate to your liking while you are in Sydney.’
George Hobbs sat behind his desk scribbling figures in his ledgers.
‘Mister White says you have the information I need for the von Fellmann charter.’
Hobbs glanced up at the captain standing before his desk. He lifted a sealed envelope from the table and passed it to him. Mort ripped open the envelope and scanned the pages.
George Hobbs watched him from behind his spectacles. He did not like the Osprey’s captain despite his reputation for turning a handsome profit in the blackbirding trade for the company. Something about Mort made him feel decidedly uncomfortable in his presence. George shuddered involuntarily.
‘Who’s this Michael O’Flynn mentioned in the report?’ Mort grunted without looking at him.
‘I believe he is an American gun dealer who took a passage out of Samoa on the Baron’s instructions. And, as far as I know, Mister O’Flynn is currently in town as a guest of the Baroness von Fellmann,’ he replied. ‘Other than that, I can tell you little more than what you have read, Captain Mort. The Baron is a rather private man, not inclined to divulge his business dealings.’
‘And this cabbage eater, Karl Straub . . . ?’ Mort queried further.
‘I’m sorry Captain,’ George shook
his head. ‘I know only as much as you and what is in the report.’
Mort stared hard at the little clerk behind his desk. He suspected that Hobbs knew more. But he also knew that his sympathies were with Lady Enid Macintosh. Why White had not dismissed David’s private secretary made little sense to him. He could only conclude that dismissing Hobbs might confirm to Lady Macintosh that her son-in-law had something to hide. He looked into the bespectacled man’s eyes and felt satisfied. Hobbs was a man who might have loyalties but he also understood fear. ‘If Mister White requires my services in the next few days he can find me aboard my ship,’ Mort said as he tucked the papers in his coat pocket and left the room.
After Mort’s departure, Granville had remained sitting at his desk. He continued to puff at the big cigar, savouring its rich taste. Michael Duffy. He had not thought of the man for a long, long time. He was annoyed that the dead man’s name should once again intrude in his life, albeit merely as a reminder of the unpleasant things he had to do to gain control of the Macintosh empire.
He stretched, stood and walked over to the window overlooking the wharves. From where he stood he could see the Osprey moored. And there was cousin David, he mused. Long dead to the world – but not to Lady Enid, his memory to her a potent obstacle to his own ambitions to rule the Macintosh fortunes.
His mother-in-law posed a real threat to his continuing ambitions to wrest complete and utter control for himself. But one day she would die, he consoled himself, and Fiona would inherit everything as the sole surviving Macintosh. And as Fiona’s husband he would manoeuvre things so that he owned it all.