‘You just told me she was safe,’ said Dussell. ‘The radio stays silent tonight.’
‘I need something to eat,’ said Kavanagh.
‘There’ll be food where we’re going,’ said Dussell.
‘And where’s that?’
‘West,’ said Dussell, pointing to the GPS. ‘Maybe an hour.’
‘There’s nothing west of here,’ said Ford.‘Not for a hundred kilometres, until you hit the Great Northern Highway and the iron ore mines.’
‘There’s plenty out there,’ said Dussell. ‘You’re the kind of guy that can’t see what he’s looking at.’
He turned to Ford and grinned, the light from the dashboard reflecting off the gold teeth, a brief wink of yellow light in his smile.
‘All that metal in your mouth,’ said Ford. ‘That why they call you Bobby Dazzler?’
The smile disappeared and Dussell turned his attention to the road. ‘I’ve got a lot of nicknames. That’s just the one they use at the Ironclad,’ he said. ‘Might be because of the teeth, but I only got these two years ago after I had a nasty run-in with a piece of peanut brittle from the roadhouse.’The road was winding now, climbing into the hills, the headlights picking out tumbled rocks either side of the strip of gravel. ‘Maybe it’s just a play on my surname, but I reckon it’s to do with the gold.’
‘How much have you found?’
‘Not me, mate. The Bobby Dazzler was the largest nugget ever discovered when Archie Clive tripped over it in 1889. He found it in Shark’s Gully. We passed the road a few minutes back. There was 413 ounces of gold in it, and they sent the thing to Paris and put it on show.’
‘Where is it now?’
Dussell laughed. ‘They melted the bastard down. They only put it on show to try and get some investors to stump up some capital to develop the mine. They never did find anyone fool enough. It was only an alluvial show. They mined it all out pretty quickly and then they were broke.’
‘The girl at the bar said you’re a geologist.’
‘What would she know?’ said Dussell. ‘I don’t waste my time with those bastards. You ask two geologists the same question and you’ll get three different answers. I’m a prospector.’
‘You ever find anything?’
‘Take a look at this truck. Tell me if I ever struck it rich. I make just enough so as I don’t have to work for anyone else.’
‘Is there still gold around here?’
‘Didn’t I just tell you that you’re not seeing what’s right in front of you? You don’t need to know anything about geology to fossick around here. The rocks are right there, looking you in the face, telling you everything you need to know. Billions of years right there on the surface, an ancient land, unchanged.’
He slowed the truck as they crested the ridge, flashed the torch on the GPS, and then watched the side of the road until he spotted the track leading off to the north. He swung the Land Rover on to it and held the steering wheel tightly with both hands as the truck lurched and bounced on the narrow track.
After twenty minutes the track had reduced to a pair of shallow wheel ruts in the gravel. If there was a route marked, Ford couldn’t see it, but Dussell seemed to know his way. The engine noise and the regular thumps from the suspension made conversation impossible, so Ford hung on to the handle above the door and swayed with the motion of the truck, watching the headlights dance over the barren country ahead of them.
They were still heading uphill, the ridge looming over them, outlined by a field of stars in a clear sky and lit in a palette of blues and greys by the moon overhead. In the distance a cluster of rocks stood proud against the horizon, and they were glowing orange. Ford could see the light flickering from a campfire hidden among the rocks. As he watched there was a flash of white light from within the radiant gold, a torch pulsing, signalling them. Ford wondered if it was Morse code. Dussell saw it and flashed the truck’s headlights in reply. They passed beneath the rocks and then turned a hairpin and the campfire was ahead of them, much closer now. Dussell threw the Land Rover into low gear as the trail got steeper, the engine screaming as it laboured up the gradient, the wheels slipping on the loose gravel.
As they neared the top of the ridge Ford could make out a figure standing upright on the rock, silhouetted against the firelight, the torch hanging loosely in his hand. Ford recognised the outline of the baseball cap with the flat brim. The Land Rover pulled up beside a Toyota ute and Ford jumped down and opened the back door for Kavanagh to get out. He offered her his hand, but she slapped it away and stepped down unaided.
Muddy jumped down from the rock, shone the torch in Ford’s face and said, ‘Your ears are burning, bro. You must have thought we was talking about you.’
TWENTY-TWO
‘You don’t seem that surprised to see us,’ said Ford.
Muddy shrugged. ‘There’s not much in this country that’s unexpected. So many freaks, weirdos and losers. You get used to it.This weekend has brought more dropkicks than usual into town, though.’
Kavanagh limped past Ford and stepped between the rocks looking for the fire, the army blanket still around her shoulders, flapping behind her. The temperature had dropped, although it was still warm, but Kavanagh was shivering. Ford followed her into the light. The campfire was in a small depression, between sharp rectangular rocks that stood upright in a ring like broken teeth. Those on the uphill side were taller; the largest had an overhanging slab that formed a small shelter. The fire seemed to be mostly embers glowing orange and white, giving off little smoke. Kavanagh held out her arms, the blanket hanging like a cape, letting the heat from the fire reach her ribs. ‘Where the fuck are we?’ she asked, slurring her words.
‘Somewhere west of Marble Bar,’ said Ford. ‘Slap bang in the middle of nowhere.’
Muddy stepped up behind him, found a rock with a bottle of beer standing on it, and sat down. ‘This ain’t nowhere, bro. This is definitely somewhere.’
‘So tell us where we are.’
‘My country, bro. This is my country.’
Dussell joined them, carrying a milk crate full of tools and a pack on his back. ‘I found these fools in the middle of the Coongan River. Left their vehicle, got sunburnt, dehydrated and generally fucked up.’
Muddy snorted. ‘You’re lucky the country didn’t let you die.’
Ford looked at the bottle in Muddy’s hand. ‘You’re killing me drinking that beer in front of me. I’m so dry I couldn’t spit enough to christen a frog.’
‘You been in the sun all day, let it burn you red like that, you shouldn’t be drinking beer.’
‘I’ll risk it,’ said Ford. ‘Humour me.’
Dussell set the crate beside the fire and swung the backpack onto a rock. ‘When you walked into the Ironclad I thought that if the big Maori bastard didn’t fuck you up, then the country would. Reynard was right, you’re a couple of dumb FIFO fuckers, wandering around the bush like that.’ He started unpacking the crate, laying the items out in a line in the sand, shining the torch on each item in turn to check it. There was a rubber mallet, an axe, a geological hammer and a set of wooden stakes bundled together. Each stake was about a foot long, sharpened at one end. At the bottom of the crate was a clipboard with a bundle of papers tied to it, and the GPS from the dashboard of the Land Rover. The last item to come out of the crate was a head torch, the lamp bound up and twisted with the elastic strapping. Dussell sat cross-legged by the fire and began to unravel it.
‘This is your important appointment?’ asked Ford. ‘A bit of midnight pegging in the middle of nowhere?’
Dussell looked up from his work and pulled at his beard. Ford enjoyed the look of surprise in the old man’s eyes. ‘Yeah, I know how it works. I worked in the gold industry for eight years, in and around Kalgoorlie. I know the tools. No other reason for a prospector to be out here in the middle of the night, all in a hurry.’
Dussell fitted the head torch to his forehead and turned it on, the beam hitting Ford in the f
ace. ‘You’re not as dumb as you look,’ he said.
Ford turned away from the light and looked at Muddy, who had a fresh beer in his hand, holding it out for him. ‘Cheers,’ Ford said.
‘Why don’t you tell us why you and the cop are lost in space.’
Ford sat down on a rock with his back to the fire and looked out over the valley. All he could make out in the moonlight were vague shadows. A full field of stars arched overhead, and the light from the fire was the only sign of human habitation. ‘This is your country?’ he asked.
Muddy walked over and sat beside him. ‘My dad’s from southern Perth, around Armadale there. But my mother’s mother came from here.This was her country. It’s my country. It’s my Auntie’s country too.’
‘This country got a smell of this boy, eh? This is his country. It owns him, and he part of it.’
The voice came from behind them, from the far side of the fire. Ford had not noticed the old woman sitting on the ground, leaning back into a crevice between two rocks, hidden in shadow, wrapped in a blanket as dark as her skin. Until she spoke Ford had thought she was part of the rock formation. She leaned forward until her face was in the light from the fire, the orange glow picking out the deep creases in a broad face as chiselled as the landscape. ‘You stranger here. Country gotta get to know you. You lucky Wallabung find you before country let you die.’
Ford looked at Dussell, puzzled. ‘I told you I got a lot of nicknames,’ said Dussell. ‘This is Emily.’ He nodded towards the old lady. ‘She’s been camped here for the last week, making sure the country was ready for us.’
‘This my nephew country two way,’ said Emily. ‘White way from his father for his grandad, he station owner. Black way from my mother. He come here looking for family, where he belong. Now he know, and he know this country. He know every rock and soak, every hill. You think this place middle of the nowhere. Every little bit of this country somewhere.’
Kavanagh pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders and sat down cross-legged by the fire. ‘You said there would be food,’ she said, to nobody in particular.
‘What do you fancy?’ asked Muddy.
‘Right now I’ll eat anything that doesn’t bite back.’
Muddy stepped up beside her and picked up a stick, then raked through the coals until he uncovered a long black shape in the embers. ‘There’s a kangaroo tail here. Should be about done by now. We were going to make some damper when Bobby Dazzler got here. We weren’t expecting guests.’
Kavanagh caught a whiff of burning fur and wrinkled her nose. ‘You got anything else?’
‘I’ve got some beans somewhere,’ said Dussell.
‘Great,’ said Kavanagh. ‘I’ll take the vegetarian option.’
Dussell rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a can, yanked off the ring pull and stood it in the embers, then helped himself to a beer.
‘There’s a gold lease that straddles this valley,’ he said. ‘This ridge and the one opposite, and the gully in between. The lease expires at midnight.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Thirty minutes, I’ll go out there and peg the bastard.’
Ford took a drink from his beer. ‘I heard they were changing it all to electronic registration these days. All done on the computer at the Mines Department.’
‘Most of it is,’ said Dussell, ‘but small gold claims, less than two hundred hectares, still need to be pegged by hand and registered at the Department in Marble Bar. You think I’d be hanging around in the Bar if there wasn’t still an angle for guys like me?’
‘You and Muddy staking a claim together?’
‘The last time I was in a proper rush of pegging was at the Rabbit Warren out past Leonora about 1982, the field that old Snowy Barnes found. It’s all changed since then. Mostly all electronic these days. GPS, internet paperwork, but you can still get out there and peg a prospecting claim yourself. There’s still the chance that the bloke on his own can get there before the big companies muscle the last of us off the rocks.’
Muddy jumped up from the rock, his eyes wide enough for Ford to see the whites reflecting the moonlight. ‘This claim was found by my mob. Long time back, 1930 they reckon. Uncle to my Auntie found the gold here. They call him Whistling Billy in town.’
‘He was well known, old Billy,’ said Dussell. ‘I used to see him in the Ironclad when I was a young bloke just starting out. ’Course, he was over the other side in the front bar with the other blackfellas. No coming across into the lounge.’
Muddy looked frustrated by the interruption. ‘These two prospectors were working the gully down there. Long time they were at it with a dry blower, picking up bits of gold, but they couldn’t work out where it was coming from. Billy, he’s with them, he walks up the creek bed with a rifle to get a kangaroo. He shoots at it and hits it, but it’s still moving. Climbs up the other side of the valley over there. Billy follows it, but that kangaroo drops close to where this quartz is sticking out. Sticking right out of the hill with a vein of gold through it, so he goes back and tells the prospectors. They say, “Well done, Billy. We’ll pay you for it. We’ll give you a lot of money for that.” They asked the storekeeper to give Billy a bag of flour and some tea, sugar and a bit of tobacco, and he was paid. He gets a bag of tucker and these wadjala get all that gold out of it.’
‘So now you’re pegging it for yourself?’ asked Ford.
‘Not for me. For all my mob. Looking to the future. What are you looking for?’
Kavanagh was leaning over the can, watching the beans start to bubble. ‘We’re doing the same as you. Looking for gold,’ she said.
‘We’re not prospecting,’ said Dussell. ‘There’s no gold around here. The claim was worked out within a year of Whistling Billy finding that vein. They drove a tunnel into the side of that ridge and the reef ran out after two hundred feet.’
‘So why are you pegging it?’
‘Just because there’s no gold doesn’t mean it’s not valuable,’ said Dussell.
‘It’s valuable to us,’ said Muddy. ‘Me and my mob.’
‘Bobby Dazzler told me the rocks speak to him. Do they talk to you too?’
‘They talk to all of us.’ This was Emily, sitting close to the fire now, scraping the singed fur from the kangaroo tail, peeling the skin away. Kavanagh looked on unimpressed. ‘Plant, rock, water, they all alive, same like animal,’ the old woman continued.
Dussell lifted the can of beans out of the fire with a pair of sticks and set it down in front of Kavanagh, then dropped a spoon in for her. ‘The blackfellas have always known where the gold is. It links in with the stories of how this country was created and how it lives today. This is a special place. Special to these people. Sacred, if you like. It was never a surprise to them that there was gold around here. The gold was always found near the sacred places.’
‘How is this place sacred to a man from Armadale?’ asked Ford.
‘What?’ Muddy was standing, pacing back and forth. ‘You think because I’m a suburban blackfella that I got no link to this country? You don’t really get it, do you?’
‘No, I don’t see it. Must be a spiritual thing.’
Muddy was nodding. ‘You white blokes, you think of this as hostile country. Something empty, forbidding. For me it’s something different, it’s nurturing. Where’s your country, bro?’
Ford was staring into the fire, the flames making pictures in his mind, shapes of landscapes far away and the faces of people he had left. ‘I grew up on the far side of the world,’ he said. ‘The hills outside Manchester. Different to this.’
‘You feel like you carry that place with you?’
Ford thought about the green hills, the millstone grit crags, the long grey twilight of summer evenings and the feeling of soft rain, cool on his face. ‘People are more important to me than places,’ he said. ‘They always were and they still are.’ The flames were resolving themselves into the faces of those he loved. ‘I need to get back to Marble Bar, to my daughter.’
&nbs
p; ‘This again?’ said Dussell. ‘It will take me an hour to peg this, then we’ll drive back.’
‘Peg this? You just said it was worthless.’
‘Again, you’re sitting there looking at the answer and not seeing it,’ said Dussell. Ford looked around, but could only see the rocks and the fire. ‘This used to be gold country. Now it’s iron ore country.’
Ford snorted. ‘The main ore deposits are further west, towards Newman. There’s nothing decent around here.’
‘Nothing as big or as rich as Mount Whaleback, granted, but the deposit here is high grade and very low silica.’
‘Nothing this far east has ever been viable.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Dussell. ‘The reason the big miners never kept looking round here was that they wanted the easy pickings at Newman. Now we’ve got the Chinese coming in, sick of the big multinationals controlling supply and dictating the iron ore price. They’ve been pumping cash into the smaller and more marginal deposits, into the start-up mining companies. Buying them outright sometimes. Lot of new mines coming on stream so that the Chinese can wedge the big boys and break the cartel.’
‘You’ll not be keeping the Chinese steel mills rolling on a two hundred acre lease,’ said Ford.
‘This whole valley is a single iron ore mining lease,’ said Muddy, animated now, bouncing from one foot to the other, working up a rhythm like he was dancing. ‘It was granted fifteen years ago, way before native title legislation was passed. My mob got nothing. No attempt to involve the traditional owners. So now we’ll make them. This little gold lease straddles the mouth of the valley. Any pit in the gully will have to batter into this lease. Any haul road or railway out of the valley will have to cross this land, and they’ll need our consent to do that.’
‘You’re going to fuck them up?’ said Ford. ‘That’s your plan?’
‘If we can stop the development of the iron ore lease, that would suit us. Leave this country undisturbed,’ said Muddy.
‘But that will never happen,’ said Dussell. ‘We know that. Any lease is at the discretion of the Minister for Mines. If we hold up development, the Minister can simply cancel the lease. All we’re hoping is that we can drag them to the negotiating table. Get them to talk to the traditional owners in good faith, as they should have done in the first place.’
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