With the tiger cat released, the kangaroos wandered off to find breakfast and a shady spot, leaving Albert to sit in the silence of the early morning.
The kangaroos had been gone only a few minutes when Bertram and Theodore came down the street and stepped up into the shed near Albert’s cage. Theodore was still wearing his goggles to protect his eyes from the light, and still carrying his shotgun.
Bertram looked at Albert and put a finger to his lips. “Shhhhh,” he whispered.
Then he pulled a pint gin bottle out of his coat pocket and tiptoed over to the bandicoots’ cage. Bertram then gently rapped the gin bottle against the bars of the cage. The bandicoots were up like a shot. Roger had his paws through the bars before Alvin cleared the center of the cage.
Bertram pulled the bottle away from the cage. Roger became more and more frantic, pushing his arms through the bars as far as he could and grabbing at the bottle that Bertram kept just out of reach. In a few moments, Bertram tired of the game and let Roger have the bottle. He turned back to Albert.
“Good morning, Albert. I hope you slept well.”
Albert looked up at Bertram.
“No point in being impolite, Albert. After all, I caught you fair and square, with a little help from your friends.” Bertram gestured over to the bandicoots, who were rapidly passing the bottle back and forth between them.
“How’s the newspaper business?” Albert asked.
Bertram smiled. “So you’ve come across a copy of the Gates of Hell Gazette. Theodore and I are quite proud of it, aren’t we, Theodore?”
The possum nodded and fingered the stock of his shotgun.
Alvin handed the bottle back to Roger and then whined at Bertram. “You promised to let us go, Bertram. You promised us.”
“Don’t worry, Alvin, I haven’t forgotten. In fact, that’s why Theodore and I are here. Aren’t we, Theodore?”
Theodore nodded and looked over at Alvin. Saliva began to glisten in the corners of Theodore’s mouth.
“We just need you to do one more thing before you get the reward money. We would like you to take a few friends of ours to the hideout of the Platypus Gang. You’ll be back in plenty of time for the hanging.”
Bertram pulled a key out of his coat pocket and started to unlock the door of the bandicoots’ cage. When Bertram mentioned the hideout, Albert jumped up. Bertram looked over as he continued to unlock the door.
“It seems that your friend from California had more blood in him than we thought. Theodore lost his trail at the edge of Hell. If he made it across the flats, I’m sure he went back to your little valley. Roger and Alvin are going to show us where that is, aren’t you?” Bertram opened the door of the cage.
Roger staggered out first, still scratching himself. “Too right we’re going to show you. That bloody foreigner stole my gun.”
Alvin called over to Albert as he followed Roger out of the cage. “We didn’t have any choice, Albert. He took away Roger’s gin and called us rodents.”
“I’m sure that was very unpleasant,” Bertram said, and dismissed the bandicoots with a wave. “Theodore, please take these material witnesses over to the bar and get them ready for their trip.”
Theodore got behind the bandicoots and herded them into the street with the butt of his shotgun. Bertram took a cigar out of his vest pocket, bit the end off, and spit it into the street.
“Every cloud has a silver lining—did you know that, Albert?”
Albert wasn’t in the mood to listen to Bertram talk about clouds. He had to think of some way to escape before Roger and Alvin could lead Theodore or the dingoes or both to the water hole. Albert had spent so much of his life in a cage that being in the jail in Barton Springs hadn’t made him frantic. He had escaped from Adelaide, and with enough time he would probably find a way to escape from Barton Springs. There was the matter of the hanging, but he had been too worried about TJ to dwell on the fact that his time to escape was limited.
“Our first meeting, except for the money in your pack, was unfortunate. Our second meeting, however, has been extremely profitable and, if I may say so, personally rewarding. By the time I had written two editorials, I had been hired to protect Barton Springs and the price on your head had been raised to ten pounds. That kind of money tempts anyone. Ask your little friends.” Bertram gestured toward the departing bandicoots with his cigar.
“Of course everyone knows that money is secondary to my sense of civic duty,” he continued. “Just yesterday there was an editorial in the Gazette which extolled my selfless heroism in capturing the notorious Platypus Gang. According to the paper, there is even talk of running me for mayor of Barton Springs. I’m humbled by the thought.”
Bertram took a match out of his pocket, struck it on the bars of Albert’s cage, and lit his cigar.
“I don’t care if that friend of yours dies in the desert, gets eaten by the dingoes, or runs back to where he came from. Theodore, however, holds a grudge.”
He took a puff on his cigar and blew a small smoke ring through the bars of the cage. “By the way, Albert, the whole time I have been here you haven’t summoned one demon.” The match burned Bertram’s fingers and he dropped it on the floor of the jail. “You must be losing your touch.”
Bertram ground the smoking match out with his heel and walked away, leaving Albert alone in the shed.
All Albert could think about as he watched Bertram catch up with Theodore and the bandicoots was that TJ was badly hurt and needed him. He felt like throwing himself against the bars, but he had seen too many animals hurt themselves doing that in Adelaide. He had done it himself right after he was caught and had soon learned that fear and desperation didn’t get you out of a cage.
Bertram had been right about one thing: the chance of a demon showing up was pretty slim. If anyone was going to get Albert out of the Barton Springs jail, it was going to have to be Albert. All he needed was a plan.
In Adelaide he had waited until someone forgot to latch his enclosure. There wasn’t much chance of him being that lucky a second time. The only other time the door to his cage was open was when they brought him food. He could probably overpower the wallaby, but the two kangaroos were another story.
The only advantage of being the lone platypus in this part of Old Australia was that no one knew about his poison spurs. TJ and the bandicoots had seen him attack the dingo, but TJ had killed it before the poison had a chance to work. It was almost certain that one kangaroo would shoot him while he was poisoning the other, but with luck, he might be able to take the gun from the one he jumped and use it first.
If that was going to be his plan, someone was going to have to die. You can’t poison someone halfway, and it’s hard to shoot someone just a little bit. Albert had never wanted to kill anyone and didn’t want to kill anyone now. He had suppressed the memories of poisoning the dog that killed his mother and had remembered it clearly only after the fight with the dingo.
TJ had saved Albert’s life more than once, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that TJ was Albert’s friend, and Albert was more than willing to die trying to save his life. The question was whether Albert was willing to kill someone else in the process. Albert didn’t really know. He had no good reason to hate the kangaroos and probably couldn’t develop one before the time came to act.
He sat on the floor of his cage waiting for the evening meal and trying to think of other ways to escape. By midday nothing had come to him. If he wanted any chance of helping TJ, he had to try to escape that evening, regardless of the consequences to himself or his jailers.
Albert got up and moved the slop bucket to the far end of the cage. Retrieving the bucket would force the wallaby to clear the door to the cage and give Albert a clear shot at the closest kangaroo. It was going to be a near thing, and he was going to need a lot of luck. Albert had told the crowd in Ponsby Station that a platypus was the luckiest animal in the world, but after spending time in Old Australia, he was beginning to have
his doubts.
He was pacing off the interior of the cage, trying to estimate the time it would take the wallaby to reach the slop bucket, when he heard a familiar voice from the street.
“So you’re the leader of the Platypus Gang.”
Albert looked up to see Jack standing in front of the shed.
“To tell the truth, I was expecting someone a little tougher-looking,” Jack continued.
Albert rushed over to the side of his cage closest to the street. Jack looked over his shoulder. The kangaroo on the other side of the street was slouched in a chair with his hat pulled down over his eyes to keep out the midday sun.
“Sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I don’t walk as fast as I used to.”
In the years Albert had spent in the zoo, he had never seen a friendly face through the bars of his cage. For a second, memories of the overwhelming loneliness of his time in Adelaide washed over him, and he was afraid to say anything just in case the figure in the slouch hat and the dirty drover’s coat might disappear at the sound of his voice.
“Are you doing all right, Albert?” Jack asked.
Albert hesitated for a few seconds before he answered. “I’m doing fine, Jack, but I’ve got a friend that’s in trouble.”
Jack took off his hat with his right paw and knocked some of the dust off it by slapping it against his leg. “I guess that makes two of us.” He put his hat back on. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Don’t go anyplace.”
Jack walked away from the jail, and Albert noticed that he was dragging his left foot.
19
Good-bye to Barton Springs
By the time Jack managed to pry open the lock on the cage, dense clouds of smoke and ash were whirling down the street in front of the shed. The shed was one of the first buildings to catch fire, and if Jack hadn’t shown up with the crowbar when he did, Albert would have burned to death. The kangaroos had long since abandoned their post, and the other creatures were too busy fleeing the fire to pay attention to what Jack and Albert were doing.
Jack wasn’t able to use his left paw and had kept it in his coat pocket. As a result, Jack had some difficulty prying open the lock, but with Albert’s help he had managed to open the cage with a minute to spare.
Albert had jumped into the street and had just helped Jack down from the shed floor when part of the roof collapsed, causing more sparks and debris to shoot skyward. Albert’s hat and canvas jacket protected him from most of the sparks, but he did have to brush off one or two small pieces of smoldering wood before they burned through his clothes. Jack had brought a couple of bandanas with him, and Albert tied one over his face and helped Jack tie the other over his.
They pushed their way through the smoke and the constantly changing wind until they came to the main street, where they joined small groups of refugees heading north out of the burning town. If any of the wallabies or bandicoots dragging children or pushing wheelbarrows full of salvaged housewares recognized Albert, they gave no sign.
Buildings on both sides of the street were on fire, and the banner that had once spanned the street had become ash that floated above the heads of the dispossessed. A few members of one of the bucket brigades along the street continued throwing water, not wanting to admit it was a pointless task. But others had abandoned their buckets and were trying to get possessions out of still-standing houses before the flames reached them.
Barton Springs wasn’t a very large place, and Albert and Jack reached the edge of town ten minutes after leaving the jail. Those inhabitants that had already gotten out had stopped on the road, not knowing where to go next. They milled around the outskirts of Barton Springs, watching the fires and looking for friends to compare tragedies with.
Albert and Jack continued to walk north as rapidly as they could, and even with Jack’s limp they soon left the inhabitants of Barton Springs behind them.
“I didn’t expect the wind to come up like that,” Jack said as he pulled the bandana down around his neck.
Albert pulled down his bandana. “Where are we going?”
“I stowed some gear in the hills close to the road.”
Jack limped up the road, stopping every so often to look back at the smoke rising from Barton Springs. Albert wasn’t sure what had happened to Jack or how badly hurt he was, so he kept Jack in front of him, just in case he needed help.
As they walked, Albert told Jack about TJ, the bandicoots, and how Bertram and Theodore were in league with the dingoes. Jack said he’d heard of Bertram and Theodore before and told Albert that they had a bad reputation in Old Australia. The word was that the possum had killed a couple of miners in a not-so-fair fight.
The trip between the town and the hills took less time than Albert’s walk to Barton Springs in shackles, but it was dusk when Jack turned off the road. He pulled a small pack out of the brush and passed it to Albert.
“When I read about the hanging, I wasn’t sure what I was going to find in Barton Springs. There is food, water, and a blanket for you in the pack.”
Then he reached in the pocket of his coat and pulled out his old pepperbox pistol and held it out to Albert. “I didn’t have time to get another gun, so take this one.”
Albert hesitated. “I don’t know, Jack. You might need it.”
“Look, Albert, if I were going with you I’d keep it. But you don’t have time to drag a cripple across the flats, not if you want to help that friend of yours.”
Albert reluctantly took the gun. “What happened to you, Jack?”
“I’m not really sure. One minute I was walking up a hill, the next minute I was lying at the bottom of the hill with a bum leg and an arm that didn’t work right. Scared the hell out of me.” Jack pulled the other pack out of the bush. “Took me a week before I could get around much.”
Albert didn’t know what to do. Both TJ and Jack were hurt, but he couldn’t be in two places at once. He knew that Jack was able to get around without him and that TJ was probably badly hurt somewhere between here and the water hole. The choice was simple, but it didn’t make Albert feel any better.
“Wait here for me, Jack. I’ll be back in a day or two.”
Jack shook his head. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“Not for sure, Jack.”
“I’ll tell you what, Albert. If you get clear, meet me at Ponsby Station. I’ll be set up near where the store used to be.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea—not after our last trip,” Albert said.
“The place is pretty much deserted. They closed down the mine after O’Hanlin got himself and half the town killed.”
Jack started to put on his pack, but he struggled with it as he tried to get the straps over his bad arm. Albert put the pistol in his coat pocket and helped Jack with his pack.
“It wasn’t you, was it?” Jack asked.
Albert picked up his own pack. “It wasn’t me what?”
“It wasn’t you that killed O’Hanlin, was it?”
Albert shook his head. “Dingoes got him.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I kind of liked O’Hanlin.”
Jack looked over in the direction of Barton Springs. A soft glow from the burning town haloed the hills. “I think I’ll wander back a little ways and watch the fire.” He hesitated a few seconds, then went on. “That friend of yours is probably already dead. Don’t get yourself killed over something you can’t do anything about.”
“I’ll try not to, Jack.”
Jack hobbled away toward the road. Albert shouldered his pack and walked into the hills toward the flats of Hell. It was some time before he realized that he had forgotten to tell Jack what he had learned about the Famous Muldoon.
20
“They Ate Alvin”
There was no moon that night and Albert had fallen twice, once into an unseen gully and once into the bed of a dry creek. Each fall had disoriented him a little bit more, and soon one star began to look much like the next and he lost all sense of direction. Des
perate to find TJ, Albert had kept walking longer than he should have.
Finally, he stopped at the base of a small hill. There was a good chance that he was getting farther away from the water hole, not closer to it. He was going to have to wait until first light to start again.
Albert took a canteen and a blanket out of the pack Jack had given him and prepared to sit out the night. Continuing to travel blindly through the night would be the same as throwing himself against the bars of a cage. He took a drink from the canteen and pulled the blanket over his shoulders. Then he leaned against the rock and sat there for the rest of the night, alert for any noise or for the smell of dingoes.
The distant mountain appeared on the horizon in the faint light of morning, and Albert knew generally where he was. He would need to walk west.
Getting lost the night before had taken Albert far enough out of his way that he didn’t reach the foothills until midmorning. He had tried to veer north toward where the cliffs began, but he miscalculated the angle and missed them by a few miles. He hurried past the hills and got to the trail that led up the cliff about an hour later. He stopped at the bottom of the trail and listened.
Albert couldn’t hear anything, but the air smelled faintly of dingo. He took the pistol out of his pocket and started cautiously up the trail. He reached the top and continued into the gap in the cliff walls, stopping to listen every few yards.
He had stepped out of the gap and onto the trail leading down to the valley when he found the body of a dingo. There was a flint-tipped spear by the body, which had been spattered with red ochre.
He walked carefully down the trail to the campsite. The lean-to was still standing, and TJ’s coat was lying on the ground under the canvas. Albert picked up the coat. It was stiff with dried blood and had a bullet hole in the back. He held TJ’s coat for a few moments before folding it neatly and putting it back where he found it. Albert held his paw over the fire pit. The ashes were still warm.
Albert of Adelaide Page 12