I pull a large breath of air into my lungs and, taking the stairs three steps at a time, reach the top only moments before the two villains get there themselves. I knock them both to the ground and they go sprawling, their knives clattering from their hands. Picking up the knives, I kick one villain in the ribs and the other in the small of the back, hurling their weapons down to the floor below. Then I charge the door. The lock cracks from the door frame and it flies open.
Three of the Callaghan mob lie asleep on the floor while Jonah Callaghan and Tommo sit at the card table. Tommo has his back to the door and another member of the mob stands beside him holding a bowie knife. I smash my fist into his jugular as he turns his head at my sudden appearance. He staggers backwards, cracking his skull hard on the wall behind him, then slides to his knees and plunges forward onto his face.
A loud explosion fills the room. Jonah Callaghan has fired a pistol which is still pointing at me, though the bullet has missed. His hand waves drunkenly and he squints to aim a second time, just as Tommo pushes hard at the table. Its edge shoves into Jonah Callaghan’s guts, spilling his chair backwards. He falls, knocking the back of his head against the floor. Somehow he still holds the pistol, which goes off again, the bullet passing through the ceiling. Tommo jumps from his chair and stamps on Callaghan’s wrist, then kicks him hard in the jaw.
The three who were sleeping on the floor are now awake, but still drunk. They come to their feet dazed and unsteady. I pull my pistol and point it at them. Meekly, they put their hands upon their heads.
Tommo has now got hold of Callaghan’s pistol. ‘There are two at the door, mark them!’ I shout to him.
‘They’s scarpered,’ he replies. ‘Bastards!’
I make the three men face the wall and put their hands flat against it. Tommo takes the bowie knives from their belts and as he does this, I see that each has a pair of Chinese pigtails hanging from his belt. No doubt Jonah Callaghan and the other cove who lies unconscious also have these gory trophies, ripped straight out from their victims’ skulls.
‘Tommo,’ I say, ‘take only what winnings are yours—leave what’s rightfully theirs.’
Tommo seems remarkably sober though his eyes are bloodshot and his face pale from fatigue. ‘It’s all bloody ours!’ he snorts. ‘Callaghan took me winnings and made me play for them a second time at gunpoint.’
‘Well if it’s rightly yours, put it into my pockets. Take the cards as well. Call the publican and tell him to bring some rope so we can tie this lot up.’
Tommo is soon stuffing my coat pockets. To my surprise the loot feels very heavy. Then I realise he’s stashing small bags of gold dust and nuggets. These are followed by a fistful of banknotes and gold sovereigns until both my coat pockets bulge. ‘I’ve took the cards too,’ he says, and goes off to call Chubb.
Puffing for breath as usual, the proprietor of the Great Eastern Hotel arrives with three of his men. He walks cautiously into the room, which is a sorry sight—the table upturned and the hearth strewn with broken whiskey bottles and plates, chop bones, eggshells, spent tobacco and Mexican cheroot butts.
Chubb takes in the scene and wipes his red face with a bandanna from his back pocket. ‘It’ll cost a pretty penny to set this straight. Lock’s broke too,’ he complains.
From downstairs, others have come to the doorway to peer at the disturbance. ‘Leave it off, all of you downstairs, you’ve got work to do,’ Chubb snarls at them, then he closes the door.
‘Mr Chubb, I want you to call a trooper to place these men under arrest. But first tie their hands.’ I point to the pigtails hanging from their belts. ‘There is plenty of evidence to suggest that these men are implicated in the murder of several Chinese in Sunday’s riots.’
Chubb frowns. ‘What about the card game? I’ll lose my licence, lad. Besides, miners drink here. They won’t like it if I gets their mates arrested for a bit of rough and tumble with the celestials.’
‘What card game?’ I say. ‘Do you see any cards? It’s clear these villains have been drinking and have smashed up the room. You’ve broken down the door, very brave too, and made an arrest in the interests of law and order.’
Tommo laughs at this. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if you doesn’t get a medal for this, Mr Chubb. Anyways these men ain’t miners, nor mates of them neither. They’re thugs and standover men, Callaghan’s mob—they’ll get no sympathy from the miners.’
‘Aye, I get your drift,’ the publican says with a sly grin. ‘They can be the troopers’ scapegoats for causing the riots.’
One of the men with Chubb begins to tie up the villains, who are still standing facing the wall. Not a word is spoken as their hands are secured behind their backs. Then the same is done to the two lying on the floor, and their ankles bound for good measure. I think Tommo’s boot must have broken Jonah Callaghan’s jaw, for it has a peculiar lopsided look and blood runs from the corner of his mouth into his beard. The cove I punched in the throat is now making rasping sounds. I’m most relieved I have not injured him fatally. It is good, however, that neither man will be able to tell tales of what has happened for some time.
The publican is examining the table and the chair. ‘Both broken,’ he says mournfully, and he waves his hand vaguely about the room. ‘Lot o’ damage done over all, ain’t there? A lot of repairs will be needed.’
There is probably not much that couldn’t be fixed by a maid with a bucket and a mop, or a carpenter for a pound’s worth of work. But I know what he is getting at.
‘How much for the repairs?’ I sigh.
Chubb looks around again, pursing his lips. ‘Four quid would clear it nicely, I should think.’
I nod. ‘What about my ten per cent, lad?’ Chubb asks my twin.
‘What ten per cent be that, Mr Chubb?’ Tommo asks politely.
‘The house takes ten per cent o’ the winnings of the card game.’
‘Card game?’ Tommo queries ingenuously, scratching his brow. ‘I thought you just agreed there were no card game, only villains what’s murdered Mongolians. A respectable pub owner like you wouldn’t take a chance on losing his licence for gamblin’, now would he?’
Chubb looks down at his boots and shakes his head slowly. ‘Aye,’ he says, ‘I can well see yer point.’
I hand the publican my pistol and Tommo gives his to the man who has supervised the tying up. The three Irishmen now sit facing the far wall.
‘You’ll be wanting to send a lad to fetch a trooper?’ Tommo suggests to Chubb. ‘Citizen’s arrest—your name in the Sydney Morning Herald for sure.’
‘"Brave Publican Arrests Irish Murder Gang!”’ I quip.
‘Single-handed!’ Tommo adds.
I pull out a handful of Tommo’s winnings and select a five-pound note, issued by the Oriental Bank, and push it into the publican’s vest pocket. ‘For the repairs, and a bit extra to buy the lads a drink. We’re off to Sydney within the hour and I’m sure we’ll not be needed at the enquiry. After all, you’ve captured the Callaghan mob all by yourself, isn’t that so?’ I pluck three more pounds from the bundle in my hand and give one to each of the hotel employees.
‘Much obliged,’ two of them say and take the money shyly. The third, who still holds the other pistol, grins. ‘I’m gunna bet it on you beating the Lightning Bolt, Mr Hawk. In the meantime, we ain’t seen you two, that I’ll guarantee. Blind as a bat we is, eh, lads?’ The others nod their heads.
‘I’ll thank you to call the police after we’re gone. Give us ten, perhaps fifteen minutes,’ I say to Chubb. He wipes his face again with the rag and smiles greasily. ‘Another fiver would seal my lips, and a sov more to each o’ the lads would settle ’em down nicely.’
‘It ain’t necessary,’ the man with the pistol protests, ‘not fer our part.’
Chubb glares at him. I dig in my pocket and give a pound to each of the men. ‘That’s so your men will not feel inclined to falsely report that a card game has taken place and so get their master into troubl
e with the police,’ I say to Chubb.
‘Much obliged to ya, Mr Chubb,’ Tommo says. ‘We’ll be off, then.’
‘Never trust a nigger!’ I hear Chubb mutter as we leave.
When we return to our camp, we find that Caleb Soul has harnessed the horses again to the trap. ‘I’m anxious to get going, lads. It’s chaos all about—we must get back to Sydney.’ He points to the horses. ‘They’re good for a stint before they’re done for the day. Hawk, you don’t seem to have pushed them too hard.’
I nod, for I’d taken them slowly knowing Caleb would be keen to leave upon my return.
‘We’ll camp a few miles out,’ Caleb says, ‘and let them graze the night. I’ve purchased provisions for the road.’
I think what a good man Caleb Soul is. He has already pulled down the tent and packed our belongings. Tommo and I do not have much gear—a blanket roll, a shirt or two, shaving tackle and the like—but Caleb has carefully loaded it all, ready to leave. Tommo goes quickly to the trap and takes out his blanket roll to check to see his fighting axe, opium pipe and poppy lamp are there. Poor Tommo, all that is precious to him is destructive.
We take our farewell from Just Lucy and Tommo gives her a fiver. She waves us goodbye, blubbing all the while. I note that her moggy is nowhere to be seen. It’s most likely asleep in some sheltered spot, catching the best of the afternoon sunshine. Cats don’t give a damn for farewells, even though this one’s been fed like a king since we’ve been here.
As soon as we’re on the road, I ask Caleb’s forgiveness for using the Tucker & Co. trap to help get Wong Ka Leung and his family to Yass. But he is most kind, saying we are heroes for it. This I cannot agree with. Tommo is a hero, yes, for he fought a hostile mob to be at my side. But as for me, it was simply a debt repaid. Wong Ka Leung, or Ah Wong as he’s said I may call him, helped me with Tommo. I owed him a good turn.
‘What a day—look at that blue sky!’ Tommo smiles as we move along. I am only grateful that he is able to see this glorious day and is not dead in a pool of blood in that stinking hotel. I know now that, in his drunken fury, Jonah Callaghan would have killed my twin without thinking twice about the consequences.
The brilliant blue sky reminds me of Maggie’s eyes. We have only been away for just over two weeks but oh, how I long to return to her. She has found a place in my heart so that I think of her a hundred times each day. I do not think I could bear to be parted from her again. Every morning and every night I take off Maggie’s magpie ring and read the inscription: Maggie Pye loves Hawk Solomon, Champion of the World. Then I kiss it and put it back on my finger. Soon enough I spy a magpie carolling away, high up on a dead branch of a gum tree, as we pass by. ‘Maggie, I’m coming home!’ I say silently to the bird. ‘Tommo’s got our stake and all’s well, my darling.’
We have not been on the road long when Tommo takes to shivering. He complains to me in a whisper that his head wound is giving him merry hell. After a while, he drops into a fitful sleep, moaning and waking and falling asleep again. Though he is exhausted, I can see he is also in pain and will soon need his pipe. As he sleeps, I wipe the sweat from his face, though the air is cold.
‘He’s been up all night,’ I explain to Caleb.
‘Poor lad,’ Caleb says. ‘I know a nice place with a running stream. We’ll camp there for the night. Not too far to go now—it will give Tommo a chance to recover.’
He asks me how the card game went, and I tell him more or less what happened. He cannot resist reminding me that he had warned Tommo against playing cards with Callaghan and his mob.
‘They could’ve killed him,’ Caleb says, nodding his head at Tommo’s slumbering form. ‘And most likely got away with it, leaving his body in the Chinese encampment. He would have been just another corpse—the lone white man to die in the riots.’
‘What happened to the man who was burnt, a white man?’ I ask, thinking of the horseman Tommo clobbered.
‘He lives, though he’s badly burned all over. There’s some justice, though God knows it’s little enough,’ Caleb observes.
‘Well, we were lucky. We got away, and got our stake to boot.’ I take a small bag of gold dust from my pocket. ‘Would you know its worth?’
Caleb switches the reins into one hand and judges the weight of the bag in his palm. ‘I’ll put it on the scales when we stop for the night, but I’d judge it at fifty pounds, give or take.’ He hands the bag back to me.
‘Well, Tommo’s won six of them and three small nuggets as well. There’s also some banknotes and gold sovs which I haven’t counted yet.’
‘Exactly the same size bags?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I reply.
Caleb nods. ‘Well, there’s no doubt where Callaghan got these from. They’re Chinese, see, made from rice sacks.’
I look at the small bag and see it has been neatly stitched with a drawstring pulling it tight.
‘Open it, you’ll see it’s lined with silk. Gold doesn’t stick to silk,’ Caleb says.
I work the drawstring open and see that he is right. The gold dust gleams in the afternoon light. ‘What are we to do now?’ I ask, concerned.
‘Nothing, lad. The true owners are dead or fled. Callaghan’s mob looted it, but Tommo won it fair and square.’
I suspect that Tommo won the loot thanks to a couple of marked decks but I refrain from saying so to Caleb. Privately I resolve to give one bag to Ah Wong when we meet as arranged in Sydney.
‘You must let me pay for all your expenses. We have enough,’ I say to Caleb, holding up the bag again.
‘I’ll take a pinch tonight when we weigh it. It will pay for the handbills.’
‘Yes, and what about the ten pounds you paid to Pat Malone and the Irishman who beat me?’
Caleb chuckles. ‘Righto, seeing you’re so flush, I’ll accept.’ I pay him what’s due and he jams the notes into his vest pocket with his thumb.
‘There is much more we owe you, Caleb, I’ve kept a record.’
‘No, no, Hawk, no more,’ Caleb smiles. ‘It’s been a long time since I enjoyed such company. I’m in your debt for the good fellowship you’ve provided me on my last trip to the diggings.’
‘This is your last trip?’
‘Aye. It ain’t been bad work and the recompense is fair, but it’s a hard life too. For a start, I have to drink too much with the customers.’
‘But I’ve never you seen intoxicated!’ I exclaim.
‘Not ever quite sober either.’ He jigs the reins and the horses move a little faster. ‘It’s time for me to take out my pills and potions, time to settle down, have a family. I’ve put a fair bit away, and pharmacy is what I really want to do.’
I think on this. If Caleb is correct I calculate that Tommo has won about four hundred pounds, most of it in gold.
‘Caleb, you asked Tommo and me once —’ I hesitate ‘— if we’d be partners with you in your pharmaceutical company?’
‘I did.’ He looks at me. ‘I’d be proud to have you in with me, Hawk. Your brother too, though I don’t know quite what he’d do.’
‘What would such a partnership cost?’
‘I thought you wished to try your hand at being a shopkeeper at the diggings?’
‘Caleb, like you, I think it’s time to settle and have a family. But now I see that the goldfields are no place for a woman and children.’
‘You’re not wrong,’ he says. ‘Then you’d consider coming in with me?’
I clear my throat. ‘Caleb, I haven’t been entirely forthcoming with you. Tommo and I must go back to Tasmania for a while—perhaps even longer than a while. I’d like to be your partner and maybe work with you later, but I would be joining you as a silent partner for the present. There’s the fight and then there’s my duties in Hobart Town…’
‘Your lass? She’s down there, is she?’
‘No, she’s from Sydney, but I’ll have to present her to our mama. I must have her blessing.’
‘Quite right,’ Caleb mu
rmurs. We don’t speak again for fifteen minutes, then Caleb says, ‘Hawk, I’d rather our partnership was fifty-fifty, with us both putting in equal amounts of capital and working together. But if you want a one-third share as a silent partner for now—with this to be revised to a half share should you come as a working partner within two years—it will cost you a hundred and fifty pounds.’
‘Will you measure it out on the scales in gold dust tonight?’ I ask. ‘Plus, of course my share of the legal expenses—including the cost of drawing up the papers for Tommo and me.’
Caleb Soul leans over and offers his hand. ‘You’ll not regret it, Hawk. Two things are certain in this life. People will always need grog and they’ll always need potions.’
So my course is set. I have resolved to marry Maggie and I must somehow persuade Tommo to return to Hobart Town with me. Mary’s last letter was most unhappy—she misses us terribly and I know she fears she may never see her boys again. I sink back into silence, much preoccupied by how I shall bring together all my loved ones at last.
Our friend is true to his word and we camp by a pleasant stream late in the afternoon. I help him set up the tent while Tommo goes away to attend to his pipe. Later that evening, Caleb brings out his gold scales and, after considerable reckoning, he declares that we have, at the very least, five hundred pounds! When I ask him to accept a little more for the trouble he has taken on our behalf he adamantly refuses, requesting only that he might help with the preparations for the fight. This I readily agree to.
A week later we are back in Sydney, where Maggie receives me with joy and tears. I too am overcome. Oh dear, how very much I love her and, from her joyous reception, it seems she loves me too.
‘Oh, Hawk, ya lovely bastard, I loves ya!’ she says, jumping into my arms.
‘Maggie, what would you say to giving up your work?’ I ask her after we’ve made love.
Tommo and Hawk Page 54