Shadow of the Osprey

by Peter Watt

  As he continued to back to the doorway, Granville nodded his agreement to her terms. He had once been told that some Aboriginal spears were tipped in a deadly poison that could bring a slow and agonising death. Even a nick from one of the barbs could be fatal and he was taking no chances of a mistake occurring. His wife had the upper hand – at least until he could find a way to disarm her.

  The click of the front door drew them both to their senses. The housemaid had returned with a parcel of groceries. ‘Are you there Missus White?’ she cheerfully called from the foyer. Granville pocketed the pistol and Fiona lowered the spear. ‘I am here,’ Fiona answered in a tired voice. The confrontation had emotionally drained her. How close she had come to murdering her husband. He scowled as he turned to walk away and she could hear his angry voice from the foyer, telling the maid that he would be moving into his club. Confused, the maid glanced up to see her mistress standing at the head of the stairs. With a shock she could see that there was a large swelling around her mistress’s left eye and blood smeared across her face. But more of a shock was seeing the Aboriginal spear still gripped in her hands. It did not take a policeman to figure out what had happened, the maid thought. Mister White had savagely attacked her mistress. She clucked her sympathy and dropping the groceries, rushed to Fiona’s side.

  FORTY-NINE

  Michael placed the remaining rounds for the Snider within easy reach and scanned the bush around him carefully for any signs of movement. He was rewarded for his alertness. The grass was moving in an odd way on the forward slope of the saddle. He pushed his rifle forward. One hundred yards he calculated, and set the rear sight for the range.

  Someone was crawling towards a low jumble of rocks on the slope, he guessed grimly. With fire support from the saddle he would be in a position to catch him in a cross-fire. Michael squeezed off a shot and the rifle butt bit reassuringly into his shoulder. Although the bullet missed, it did pass close enough to the crawling man to cause him to leap to his feet and dash for the rocks.

  Michael expertly flipped the breech and reloaded. His sights were set and he had the range. He aimed at a point slightly in front of the running man and fired. The terrified Chinese had almost reached the safety of the rocks when his ribs were smashed by the lead bullet. His forward momentum propelled him into the rocks where he crumpled like a rag doll. With the expertise of an experienced soldier, Michael had reloaded, even before the man had crashed into the rocks.

  Michael hugged the earth and the expected return fire from the saddle above splattered around him. The concave shape of the slope provided extra protection against direct fire, and the Irish mercenary knew that he was safe in his position, so long as he kept them at bay. He also knew that he could meet any rash assault with the Colt that lay reassuringly beside his hand. Mort might have him pinned down, but they were again at a stalemate. For the next four hours neither side made a move.

  Mort had watched the drama with professional interest. O’Flynn was deadly with the Snider, he admitted. He had to admire his adversary’s skill. The former police officer reassessed the situation. Maybe the night would provide him with the chance to turn the tables on O’Flynn. It would also provide an opportunity to use stealth in an attack under the cover of darkness when Woo returned with the Cochinese girl and his extra men.

  It was just before sunset when one of the Chinese sentries found the pirate captain crawling towards him. Half his face had been sliced away by some kind of axe and he was losing a lot of blood. Although his injury was horrific, Mort figured that the man would probably live, albeit remaining horribly disfigured for the rest of his life. ‘You say the girl got away! You incompetent bastard,’ Mort spat savagely, and the pirate glared at him with hate-filled eyes.

  ‘Black man, many black man attack,’ the pirate captain babbled through waves of pain from his terrible wound. ‘White man with them, boss man to black man. Kill all Chinee man . . . kill me.’

  Mort shook his head and sighed bitterly. It was all over! He knew the survivors of O’Flynn’s party would be just about at Cooktown by the time they went after them. And besides, with O’Flynn still alive and on the slope with his deadly Snider, he still posed a threat to them. He was certain that O’Flynn had already resigned himself to die – and seemed determined to take as many of them as possible to hell with him.

  Well, if that is what you want, Mister O’Flynn, Mort brooded as he watched the pirate captain bind his wound with his jacket, that’s what you will get. Woo was tough and Mort was glad that the pirate captain had lived through the Aboriginal attack. He needed every man who could fire a rifle to grant O’Flynn’s death wish.

  Mort slid the infantry sword from its scabbard and placed it by his side. He gazed westward at the slowly sinking orange ball of light. The approaching night came as a gentle pink glow in the west as the long shadows crept across the grassy slope. Then the gentle breeze dropped and the glow was gone, replaced by deeper and softer shadows. And finally the shadows were gone, absorbed by the darkness that came with stars filling the sky with sparkling crystalline light and shining down on the lone sniper lying out on the slope.

  Michael’s shoulder throbbed from the wound. When he tried to crawl to another position he felt his shirt sticking to his back where the blood had congealed from his wound. He felt a strange and beautiful peace descend on him. So, he was slowly bleeding to death, he thought idly, and made a feeble attempt to reach for his water canteen to quench his raging thirst. Dying was not as bad as he thought it would be, and with all the strength he could muster, he brought the canteen to his lips.

  ‘O’Flynn!’ Mort’s voice cut across the calm of the tropical night. ‘If you can hear me I would like you to know that I will kill you myself. O’Flynn . . . ?’

  So the murdering bastard wants to know if I’m still out here, Michael thought dreamily as the waves of euphoria washed over him.

  ‘O’Flynn?’ Mort called again. Had the Irishman slipped away in the dark? He raised his head cautiously to peer over the edge of the saddle. There was nothing out there except the foreboding silence and the sinister night. ‘Woo,’ Mort whispered softly to the pirate captain who sat holding a shirt to the side of his badly injured face. ‘Get a couple of your men to go down and see if our friend is still there.’

  Woo hesitated, but was acutely aware that the devil had his rifle pointed at him. Now that the girl was well out of their grasp, he had no reason to follow the orders of the barbarian demon, except that he had an evil aura that made even the tough Chinese pirate think twice about killing him. Maybe later, he mused, and hissed orders to two of his men. They slithered over the rim of the rise, crawling cautiously towards where they suspected the leader of the men who had caused them so much trouble to be. These men had crept upon the fishing villages of their helpless victims in the dark, and night fighting was a form of warfare that suited their tastes.

  A rustling in the grass . . . a snake . . . or a small marsupial hunter in search of prey? Lying on his back, Michael fought the urge to keep his eyes closed. He knew he must be ready, no matter how seductive the world beyond the darkness that beckoned to him with promises of eternal sleep. The chirping of the crickets had ceased. With the Colt in one hand, and the rifle in the other, Michael rolled very slowly onto his stomach, the painful effort causing his vision to twirl and blur.

  They loomed simultaneously as silhouettes against the night sky. The two men were so close that Michael thrust the barrel of his rifle into one of the men’s chest when he pulled the trigger. Both Chinese had moved too soon and their fatal miscalculation cost them their lives. Michael emptied his Colt into the second man who had fired wildly in the dark.

  Mort heard the shots and the unnerving, strangled death screams. At least he was certain that the Irishman was still out there. But why had he not used the night to escape? Because he could not! The Irishman must be badly wounded. Even so, he had to presume that the two men sent out to stalk O’Flynn had joined their ancestors in
the next world. All he could do now was wait for the first light of morning. O’Flynn would be dead – or at least in no shape to resist a final assault on his position.

  Mort rolled on his back. A few hours sleep was important if he was to have the vital edge for the final confrontation in the morning. And before he drifted into sleep, he had the satisfaction of knowing that the Irishman could not afford to close his eyes if he were to stay alive to see another dawn.

  Michael closed his eyes. On a grassy slope of an unnamed hill, he entered a twilight world where he hovered between life and death. The dreams that came to his fevered mind were as real to him as the two dead Chinese only a few feet away staring with sightless eyes up at the Southern Cross. His night was filled with the ghostly faces of comrades long dead. He spoke to them, his fevered words drifting across the dark void.

  The pistol slipped from his fingers.

  Mort woke and shuddered with superstitious fear as he listened to the litany for the dead. It was as if his adversary was calling on a phantom army. ‘Shut up you Irish bastard!’ he screamed down the slope. For a fleeting moment he entertained the idea that he could go down the slope and finish O’Flynn off with a thrust from his sword. But he cautioned himself that O’Flynn might be playing an elaborate ruse to lure him. No, he would wait until the morning; he would not allow the ranting of the man to keep him awake!

  In his world of ghosts Michael walked the corridors of his life. Or was it that his life was a parade that passed before him? Sometimes he would choose to linger: to stop and watch Aunt Bridget stoking the kitchen fire at the Erin Hotel, or climb a tree in Fraser’s paddock with Daniel, when they were boys. Now he was teasing Katie, who scowled at him for his mischief; and now he was on a beach where seagulls cried with human voices. Fiona was holding his hand, and he held the hand of a little boy with green eyes.

  ‘Patrick!’

  The name screamed in the night snapped Mort from his fitful sleep. He sat bolt upright staring with mad eyes into the dark. But there was nothing out there, except the ramblings of the Irishman, and the great canopy of stars shimmering overhead. The Irishman had screamed the name of the teamster he had slain so long ago.

  Asleep in her bed in Cooktown, Kate was catapulted into consciousness by a scream. She sat up and could hear her own laboured breathing and the thump of her heart. But she sensed that she was not being threatened, and that the scream had no physical substance. A nightmare, she decided, as she pulled a shawl around her shoulders, and slipped from the bed to check on the sleeping children.

  Reassured that they were safe in their beds, Kate returned to her bedroom where she sat in a chair with the lantern on a sideboard, lighting the tiny space that she shared with no man.

  The silent scream still haunted her as the room seemed to resound with its echo. It had been so real. As real as had the experience eleven years earlier, when the old Aboriginal had come to her on the brigalow plains of central Queensland. He had been daubed in ochre and covered with colourful feathers. Kate still had vivid memories of his surreal visit in the night. He had come to her on the wings of an eagle and revealed in her dreams the destruction of his people. He had spoken to her of a spirit person – a white warrior – whose destiny was bound in blood and revenge. The images had been vague, however, and the time of destiny too far in the future for the seventeen-year-old girl to comprehend.

  As she sat staring, her present dreams returned as frightening whispers; a vision of a muddy pool of water and an evil-eyed crow. The shadow of death stalked a member of her family. In despair Kate realised that there was nothing she could do to prevent the imminent tragedy.

  But whose death – or dying – had reached out to her?

  Tears welled in her eyes and she reached for a pen and paper. It was time to write to her family in faraway Sydney. She suspected that, in due course, she would receive a letter informing her of a death in the family.

  As Kate poised with the pen over the blank page she had the oddest of thoughts. For a moment an image of her long-dead brother Michael came to her. She shook her head, dismissing the strange recollection of him. But the thoughts of her brother persisted.

  She placed the pen in the inkwell and attempted to rationalise her thoughts. Was it because she had been so close to Michael in life that his spirit should naturally come to her thoughts when she had a premonition of a death in the family? That her ancient Celtic blood turned her brother into a bearer of tragic news in her life? Whatever the answer was, she knew that soon she would learn of a death in the family, and it would not surprise her.

  She lifted the pen from the inkwell once more. She could hear the calls of the distant curlews in the night, a high keening moan which caused her to shudder.

  FIFTY

  Michael woke with the sun in his face and a raging thirst. His shoulder felt as if it was on fire and his body was covered in a sticky sheen of sweat. The fevered dreams had been so real! And there was something important in the dreams. Something that he must remember . . .

  He rolled painfully onto his stomach and reached for the canteen and swallowed the water until there was none left. He felt better for drinking but he was still very feverish and his shoulder throbbed even more than the day before.

  A shadow fell across him. Michael rolled on his back and snatched desperately for his pistol, with the despairing recollection that he had not reloaded.

  The boot came down on his wrist with a jarring crunch and a voice above him snarled. ‘I was hoping you weren’t dead yet.’ The sharp point of a sword nicked at his throat.

  ‘Captain Mort,’ he replied hoarsely as he struggled to sit up. ‘Good of you to be concerned about my health. Did you bring your friends with you?’

  ‘I’m afraid you scared the worthless bastards off,’ Mort said with an evil smile. ‘Woke up this morning and they were gone. Except for these two,’ he said, indicating the two dead Chinese beside Michael with the revolver in his other hand. ‘Just you and I left out in God knows where to chat for a while before I kill you.’

  ‘Thought you would have by now, you murdering bastard.’

  Mort ignored the slur. ‘You are right about me being a murdering bastard Mister O’Flynn,’ he replied calmly. ‘But I’m no worse than you. From what I can gather you have always killed for money. For me, killing has always been for the pleasure. Now, I think my motives are far purer than yours. Don’t you?’

  He expected no answer from the badly wounded man at his feet. But what kept the man alive, he wondered as he stared at the dark splash of blood that stained Michael’s shirt. Most men would have been long dead by now from the same wound.

  When Mort shifted his gaze to the wounded man’s single grey eye in which he saw a smouldering fire. Immediately he sensed that at this place, and at this time, he was fated to learn of something that had haunted him for years. In the dark hours of his deepest dreams the old Aboriginal had visited him. He had stood daubed in feathers and ochre and watched him malevolently with ancient, accusing eyes, causing him to wake screaming in the night. Nightmares, he consoled himself. But the spectre of the Aboriginal had come to him the previous night and had remained even though he had been wide awake.

  ‘I have a question for you, Mister O’Flynn,’ Mort said in a deceptively polite tone, as if they were simply two men chatting under a warm sun on another magnificent day. ‘Did you ever know an Irishman by the name of Patrick Duffy?’

  Michael did not reply. The sword was still at his throat and he could hear the sweet warble of the magpies calling. Tiny insects rose with a soft whirr. The situation seemed hopeless as Mort kept the point of the blade firmly at his throat. The same blade that had killed my father, Michael thought as he glared up at Mort.

  Michael’s attention shifted to an image straight out of the pits of hell. He shuddered and smiled grimly at Mort. ‘Well you might kill me Captain Mort,’ he said calmly, ‘but I doubt that you will ever get out of here alive.’

  A puzzled expression cloud
ed Mort’s face.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ Michael continued, ‘whether it is you who kills me or that party of myalls behind you it doesn’t matter. We are both dead men it seems. At least I hope so, because I hear the myalls around here like to roast their prisoners for a meal.’

  Mort shook his head slowly and smiled with feigned sadness for the desperate man’s feeble attempt to distract him. But the slight whisper of grass underfoot caused him to feel a dread he had never known before. With the blade firmly at Michael’s throat, he slowly turned his head, and was transfixed with terror.

  Twenty or so yellow- and white-painted warriors stood ominously silent a mere ten paces away, watching them. They were naked except for the lethal weapons they carried. Screeching the bloodchilling cry of the black cockatoo, they exploded into action and rushed Mort before he could raise his pistol.

  A wooden club came crashing down on his head with a sickening crunch. Stunned, Mort’s legs crumpled under him as he was seized. The warriors gave a triumphant whoop as they hoisted him on their shoulders. Now he knew what the old Aboriginal had told him which he did not want to hear!

  The painted warriors ignored Michael and carried Mort to the rocks where Michael had killed the Chinese pirate the day before. Puzzled as to why the warriors had left him alone, but still fearing their unwanted attention, he cautiously reached for the revolver Mort had dropped when he had been seized by the tribesmen.

  ‘You won’t be needing that,’ a familiar voice called to him across the slope. Michael glanced up to see Christie Palmerston striding towards him from the rainforest.

  ‘I thought they got you Mister Palmerston,’ Michael said, as Christie helped him to his feet.

  ‘No. I was lucky enough to run into a few old friends,’ he replied grimly, casting a wary glance in the direction of the tribesmen who were holding Mort down on the rocks. ‘They said they were sorry for killing the horses. But I said that would be all right. I promised them a good feed of Chinese which they got yesterday down on the river and they told me about your hold up hereabouts. I waited until this morning to come after you. Had no choice. They were a bit busy last night . . . feasting.’