by Peter Watt
Tall and rangy, Luke was now in the latter part of his thirties. His face was tanned from his exposure to the elements and the old scar that traced a line from his eye to his chin had become barely discernible with the passing of time. His blue eyes still had the look of a man accustomed to gazing at distant horizons. And although he did not have the classic handsome features of the refined gentleman, his face reflected a mixture of gentleness and savage strength. It was a face that was reassuring and easy to love.
‘Mister Tracy?’
The question caused him to freeze. Had one of the constabulary recognised him? Had a poster been produced of his likeness? Were they still out to arrest him? He turned slowly and felt a sickening recognition.
The big man limped towards him. ‘Sergeant James,’ he answered with a note of despair. ‘Long time since we last met.’
Henry James unexpectedly thrust out his hand. ‘I thought it was you, even though you have shaved off your beard.’ Luke accepted the handshake as Henry continued. ‘It’s not sergeant any more Mister Tracy. I was pensioned out of the police a couple of years back. Me and Emma work for Kate O’Keefe nowadays.’ The mention of Kate’s name caused Luke to feel giddy. ‘You feeling unwell Mister Tracy?’ Henry asked when he noticed the blood drain from the American’s face.
‘Yeah. Just getting my land legs,’ Luke replied as he recovered his composure. ‘How is Kate these days?’
‘As well as can be, from the last time I saw her.’
‘When was that?’ Luke asked, attempting to sound indifferent.
‘A few weeks back, before she went up the track to the Palmer with young Ben Rosenblum. They took a couple of wagons with supplies for the fields. Hoped to get through as soon as the Wet receded. According to all going well she should be on her way back by now.’ Henry broke into a broad smile and dropped his handshake. ‘I was down at the wharf checking on a cargo manifest when I saw you get off that ship out of San Francisco. Couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you. How long has it been?’
‘Too long,’ Luke sighed. ‘Too long away from Queensland.’
‘You have to come down to the depot and meet my family,’ Henry said, slapping Luke on the back. ‘I know Emma will be surprised to see you. She always figured you and Kate were a matched pair and wondered why you never got together.’
Luke let the big former policeman guide him along the wagon-rutted street through the jostling crowds that mirrored every nation and its citizens. As they walked Henry babbled on about events in the Australian colonies that he felt Luke might want to know. ‘You must have left the year that mad Irish Fenian shot Prince Alfred down in Sydney,’ he said.
Luke nodded. He vaguely remembered something talked about around the Brisbane hotels while he was waiting for his ship to San Francisco. Something about the attempted assassination of Queen Victoria’s second son who was on a goodwill tour of the Australian colonies. Some argued that the failed assassin was mad. Others stuck to the Irish Fenian plot to strike a blow against the English. No matter what, the man was eventually hanged.
A group of Europeans were struggling with a load of heavy supplies onto a dray.
‘Could do with some of them Kanakas up in this bloody place as labourers,’ Henry quipped. ‘Those big blackfellas are used to working in the tropics but the bloody Queensland government has passed an Act protecting ’em. Think it had something to do with that massacre of sixty islanders aboard that blackbirder brig Carl back in ’68. And we’re not getting any more convicts to help out since you left. It seems England is deserting us,’ he grumbled. ‘Pulled out their army leaving us to fend for ourselves. And just when we need ’em to give the myalls a lesson in civilised behaviour around these parts. The government has been trying to round up the blackfellas but the myalls up here are a different lot to the ones I knew down south. Fight like those Spanish guerillas did against old Napoleon’s armies in the Peninsula War. Hit and run tactics against the miners along the track to the goldfields.’
Luke listened with interest as Henry rambled on about the current status of the frontier. He had been away for just on six years and was learning quickly how things were different from what he remembered of the places beyond civilisation.
They came to one of the larger timber and iron shops at the end of the main street. Luke read the sign above the door: The Eureka Company – General Merchants to the Palmer and Cooktown. The name Eureka brought a smile to his face. The defiance was still in the Duffys. Henry ushered him inside the shop and Luke immediately found himself amidst a tidy cluster of goods. It was obvious from the well-stocked supplies that Kate ran a prosperous business. Men and women picked through the goods while a pretty young woman with startling blue eyes and long red hair tied back at her slender neck stood behind a heavy timber bench taking their money. She glanced up at Henry and then at Luke with a quizzical expression.
‘This is the legendary Luke Tracy,’ Henry said by way of flattering introduction. ‘Mister Tracy, my wife Emma.’
Luke removed his broad floppy hat and mumbled a polite, ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance ma’am.’
‘Mister Tracy,’ Emma said as she came out from behind the counter. ‘I have heard many stories about you from the Cohens and Kate. Had matters worked in more fortunate ways I might have met you earlier when you were briefly in Rockhampton.’
‘That was my misfortune,’ Luke said, somewhat embarrassed by the special treatment being doled out by the Jameses. ‘I knew your husband from those days.’
‘You are an extraordinary man by all their accounts,’ Emma said. ‘I think Kate is very fond of you, more fond than most.’
Luke felt just a twinge of a blush under his tanned skin. If only they knew how much Kate meant to him. Not a day of his life had passed without her coming to his thoughts with her beautiful grey eyes and gentle smile. Not an hour when he did not ache to hold her and tell her how much he had loved her. His was a love that had begun the day they had stood together on a paddlewheeler steaming up the Fitzroy River over a decade earlier. And when riding the snow-blasted prairies of Montana in winter he had talked to her in his head. On the great paddlewheelers of the Mississippi the scent of lavender would sometimes drift to him from the pretty ladies and he would instinctively seek her out. In the forest-covered mountains of the Rockies she had been with him as he sat by his campfire. No, it had not been the news of the gold rush to northern Queensland that had really brought him back to the shores of Australia. It had been the inevitable search for the one true love of his life – Kate O’Keefe. But it was also a hopeless search because even if he found her there was nothing to say that someone else did not share her affections. Or that he – an almost penniless drifter forever seeking El Dorado – would amount to much in her affections. Even the mention of her fondness for him amounted to little more than feelings one would have for a friend. And what would he say to her when he sees her again? The thought somehow frightened him more than any of the numerous dangerous situations he had confronted in his past.
‘Do you have lodgings?’ Emma asked, cutting across his thoughts. ‘If not then I know Kate would insist on you staying with us. We have a store room you can use until you decide on anywhere else you wish to stay.’
‘Good idea,’ Henry grunted. ‘Kate would never forgive us if she knew we had not offered.’
‘Thanks Sergeant James,’ Luke replied gratefully. He had just stepped off the ship and knew from past experience on goldfields that accommodation was at a premium. ‘I’ll take you up on your offer.’
‘It’s Henry,’ the former police sergeant said. ‘Don’t think formalities are in order with someone Kate holds in such high esteem.’
‘Thanks Henry,’ Luke said. ‘Hope you’ll call me Luke. Kind of nice to hear the name my mother gave me used by friends.’
Henry showed Luke to the spare room used to store bales of cloth. The American dropped his swag which was little more than a couple of blankets wrapped around the few personal items h
e carried. He glanced around and Henry could see that the American was pleased with what he saw. Although the heat in the tropics could be almost unbearable the plank walls had cracks wide enough to let in a gentle breeze yet keep unwanted visitors out. It was clean, protected from the elements and relatively comfortable when the bales of cloth were used to sleep on.
‘We don’t live here,’ Henry said. ‘We have a place up on the hill overlooking the river. You are expected for dinner tonight. Emma is a wonderful cook.’
‘Thanks.’ Fate had dealt him a good hand for once.
‘I’ll leave for now,’ Henry said. ‘Got to get back to the wharf. Expecting supplies on the next ship from Brisbane. Guess I will see you later after you get settled in.’
Luke nodded and when Henry left sat down on a bale. His head was reeling from the totally unexpected meeting with ghosts of his past. He had never in his wildest dreams expected to come so close to Kate simply by stepping off the ship in Cooktown. He had originally planned to try his luck on the fields and then head south to Rockhampton where he had last seen her years earlier. But luck had brought him to where he was now – within maybe days of finding Kate. All he had to do was head up the track to the Palmer and if his luck held out he would find her.
He unrolled the swag to reveal a leather wallet containing personal papers, a big Colt revolver and a sewing kit. He unwrapped a spare shirt that had been in the swag, found his shaving gear and thought about going in search of a bath. He felt content under the azure skies of tropical North Queensland. He felt that he had come home.
That evening at the James residence on the hill Luke met the progeny of Tom Duffy and his Darambal wife Mondo: Peter, Timothy and Sarah. He was impressed by the three children’s manners. They were a credit to Kate, he thought, when informed how she had raised them with the help of governesses. He was also ruefully informed by Emma that they were a bit of a handful at times.
Luke also met Henry and Emma’s son Gordon who he noted was very much like his father in his looks and mannerisms. When he asked the ages of the children he was told that Peter and Gordon were both almost twelve, Timothy ten and Sarah eight. It was obvious that the Duffy children and the James boy were as close as blood could be. Particularly Gordon and Peter.
Peter had the dark skin of his mother’s people but the big build of his Irish father. His eyes were grey and he was a handsome lad. Timothy was fairer and very reserved. He did not seem to be as close as the others, Luke observed, and was less open in his way. But it was little Sarah who made the biggest impression on the American. Her skin had an almost golden sheen and she had the promise of growing into a beautiful young woman. But more than that, her nature was gentle and intelligent. She took an immediate liking to Luke.
Emma put the children in the care of a housekeeper who came in to assist at dinner times. The housekeeper, a good Christian woman who had lost her husband on the goldfields when a powder blast went wrong, had been hired by Kate to help Emma while she was away on the track. She was a big buxom middle-aged woman with grey hair and a no-nonsense approach to life and she quickly bustled the children off to bed.
Over a leg of roast mutton and vegetables Luke unfolded his plans to set out for the Palmer fields as soon as he had purchased sufficient supplies and had saved enough money to purchase a horse and new saddle.
Henry raised his eyebrows at the American’s eagerness to get started but Emma smiled to herself. She had noticed with a woman’s perceptiveness the change that came over the American every time Kate’s name came up in conversation. It was no wonder he was eager to head out from Cooktown. He was a man desperately in love with the beautiful Irishwoman. But she frowned when she remembered the visit she had received two days earlier, a visit she knew would cause her friend a terrible pain in unleashing memories better forgotten.
Henry had been fencing a paddock for the bullocks at the back of Cooktown and she had been alone in the store. A big, handsome man had walked in and announced that he was Kevin O’Keefe, Kate’s husband, and that he was looking for his wife. Shocked, Emma stated that Kate was somewhere on the track between Cooktown and the Palmer. He had stood for a moment appraising the store and left without any other conversation.
Reeling from the meeting Emma debated whether to tell her husband of the sudden reappearance of the man who had deserted Kate over a decade earlier. She was fully aware of the circumstances of the desertion as Judith Cohen had recounted the story to her when they lived in Rockhampton.
It was a pitiful story of a young and pregnant seventeen-year-old girl left alone at nights while her worthless husband went in search of good times at the local hotels and grog shanties. Judith and her husband Solomon had nursed Kate through a terrible fever at Luke Tracy’s request. Finally Kevin O’Keefe ran off with the wife of a local publican, leaving his very ill wife to give premature birth to their child. The tiny baby lived only a few hours and was buried in a lonely grave outside Rockhampton. It had been the quiet strength of Luke and the loving care of the Cohens that had kept Kate going through the critical weeks following this tragic loss.
Emma had finally decided that she should not tell Henry of the meeting. Such was her husband’s loyalty to their employer, she was just a little frightened that her big burly husband might become angry and seek out O’Keefe for a thrashing for all the grief he had visited upon Kate. And she sensed O’Keefe was a man capable of great violence. Her real fear was for Henry’s safety should such a confrontation occur.
But now she had reason to feel an even greater disquiet. She remembered a story of a confrontation between Luke Tracy and O’Keefe. Years earlier a traveller to Rockhampton had told her of the incident. In some grog shanty outside of Brisbane Luke had pulled his gun on O’Keefe and threatened to kill him if they ever met again.
She turned her attention to the American puffing contentedly on a cigar Henry had produced after the meal. He seemed at peace and she suspected that the possible proximity of Kate had a lot to do with his serenity. She knew that if she told him of the meeting with Kate’s husband it might have a fatal outcome for the gentle American. Emma prayed that the two men would never meet.
FIVE
The reception at the von Fellmann residence was impressive. The house and garden had a panoramic view of the harbour. Shade was provided under brightly coloured marquee tents to keep the copious quantities of champagne chilled in buckets filled with ice imported from America. The champagne washed down succulent rock oysters freshly harvested from the harbour’s foreshores.
The elegant guests picked at delicacies from silver salvers. It was obvious to Michael from the lavishly prepared reception that the German aristocrat was a man of considerable means.
Michael stood alone amongst the elegantly dressed guests. From his own flamboyant dress it was not hard to pick him as an American. But flamboyancy was not unique to him. Colourful military uniforms of colonial volunteer and militia officers, and their British brother officers on liaison duties to the newly established defence forces of New South Wales, also provided colour on the manicured lawns of the harbourside mansion.
Young ladies in dresses fitted over whalebone corsets flirted with the handsome and dashing young officers. More than one daughter of the landed or merchant gentry cast an undisguised look of admiration in the direction of the tall, splendidly built American with the exotic black leather eye patch. Coy whispers from behind ornate fans followed Michael as he walked alone to the edge of the lawn. From here he had a spectacular sweeping view of the harbour below. But he remained aloof from the guests. He had come on business. It did not pay to expose himself to inquiries about his past, however politely phrased.
He was not alone for long. A British army major joined him at the edge of the lawn. ‘Mister O’Flynn I believe,’ the officer said politely. ‘We haven’t met before but we nearly might have.’ The English officer extended his hand. ‘I’m Major Godfrey. Currently on liaison duty with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Highland Volunteer Rif
le Corps. I heard from a mutual friend that you once served with Phil Sheridan’s command in the late war between the States. As it happens I had the honour of being one of Her Majesty’s military observers in the same campaign where you regrettably lost your eye.’
Michael accepted his extended hand. ‘You said a mutual friend Major Godfrey,’ he replied guardedly, sizing up the English officer. ‘I am not sure who that might be.’
‘Ah, yes. You were only vaguely acquainted with Mister Horace Brown on the Boston,’ the Major said as he gazed across the harbour. ‘Mister Brown and I served together in the Crimea many years ago. I had the good fortune to run into Horace only yesterday at Victoria Barracks. He often drops in on the Officers’ Mess when he is in town and tells me about his sojourns on the family’s money.’
‘Yes, I remember Mister Brown,’ Michael said warily as he appraised the major. ‘Poor poker player if I remember your friend rightly.’
Although the British major had the foppish manner of a gentleman born to command Michael noticed the colourful strip sewn on his jacket which belied the major’s dilettante manner. He was obviously tougher than he looked as his ribands reflected the many colonial wars the major had fought in the interests of the British Empire: service in the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and the Second China War. He also wore the dark blue riband with a brownish stripe of the New Zealand campaign in which Michael had also fought under the command of the famous Prussian Count von Tempsky.
‘I see you were also in the New Zealand campaign Major,’ Michael said by way of conversation. The English officer gave him a sharp look of interest.
‘I am flattered to think that an American would recognise the riband, Mister O’Flynn,’ he said. ‘How is it that you know the medal?’
Michael sipped at his champagne. A bad move to know such things. ‘Knew a Limey once who had the same medal,’ he answered quickly.