by Peter Watt
Granville shook his head. ‘No, he is no threat,’ he replied. ‘I want you to organise people I know you are acquainted with to find a young boy who would be around eleven years of age by now. The boy is most likely the son of another Duffy I had the misfortune of being acquainted with some years ago, Michael Duffy. Not that you would have personally known him as you were with the Native Mounted Police at the time. I now strongly suspect that the boy is alive and being raised by his family at the Erin Hotel in Redfern, where his uncle Daniel Duffy lives. I want you to ascertain if the boy exists.’
‘What if I find him? What then Mister White?’
‘You take appropriate action to remove him permanently from this world.’
Mort frowned. It was not that he had any qualms about killing a boy, but that the risks were great when it brought him close to the lawyer who had almost succeeded in having him hanged years earlier. ‘I can make arrangements,’ he said. ‘But I cannot risk being personally involved. Lady Macintosh came to the Osprey recently to warn me that I may be arrested for the death of her son. I don’t know how she knows, but I do know she was not bluffing. I hope you understand why I have to keep my head down.’
‘I fully understand Captain,’ Granville said sympathetically. ‘I am only calling on your assistance to arrange for the right people to do the job. I can also assure you that my mother-in-law has nothing in the way of evidence to link you to my dear cousin David’s death. She is just a bitter and helpless old woman clutching at straws. I can promise that given time, Captain Mort, she will be stripped of all power in the companies, and I will have sole control of the Macintosh enterprises. So you need not worry about her threats. There is one other thing I should add that I think will please you,’ he added smugly. ‘Carry out this task of disposing of the Duffy brat, if he exists, and I will have papers drawn up signing the Osprey over to you on the demise of my dear mother-in-law.’
Mort tensed and looked sharply at Granville. Had he heard right? The Osprey would be his! Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined such a prize. He would own the only thing he truly loved in this world! His sharp look turned to suspicion. ‘Lady Macintosh would never approve of such a contract,’ he said in a surly tone.
‘Lady Macintosh does not have to know,’ Granville replied with a cold smile. ‘The papers will be drawn up in secret. They will be legitimate, with a little legal intrigue, and you will have a duly signed copy with my signature. I am sure that the contract will stand up in any court of law.’ Mort relaxed. Despite his distrust in everything and everyone he did have a respect for formal papers. ‘Oh,’ Granville added, ‘I do not have to impress upon you the need for the utmost confidentiality in this matter.’
‘That goes without saying Mister White,’ Mort scowled. ‘I will attend to the matter we have discussed straightaway.’ He glanced around the room and added, ‘Kind of surprised you would meet me in such a place as this Mister White. Thought you might find somewhere better.’
Granville smiled ruefully. ‘One does not make a profit by spending on luxuries,’ he replied. ‘One supplies the product and the customer is satisfied whether they be in a harem or in this place of ill repute. So if you have no further questions I will organise the money for your venture.’
Mort had no further questions. Finding a boy – and killing him – required little in the way of knowledge. All it required was an acquired brutality.
~
The man Captain Mort hired was good at his job. His name was Charlie Heath and although he was reputed to have killed on two other occasions he had never been brought to justice. He was a big, vicious-looking man who frequented the pubs around The Rocks where he lived off the vice and violence of the area. Besides being physically very strong, he had an inborn cunning that, in another world, would have made him a slick politician.
Heath’s appearance in the bar of the Erin Hotel caused Max Braun some curiosity. The man was not a regular patron and his overheard questions concerning the Duffy family caused more than a twinge of suspicion with the burly barman.
‘Vot you vont to know about Duffy family?’ Max asked aggressively when Charlie stepped up to the bar for a drink. ‘I hear you ask too many questions mein friend.’
Charlie eyed the barman with an insolence born of the self-confidence to inflict pain. ‘None of yer business cabbage eater,’ he answered with a sneer. ‘Just a few friendly questions is all I ask.’
Max fixed the other man’s eyes with his and Charlie was surprised to see no hint of fear in the German’s face. ‘You be vise to ask your questions elsewhere,’ Max said. ‘None of the Duffy business is yours. Now I ask you to leaf or I throw you out.’
Charlie bridled at the obvious challenge. But his cunning overrode his instinct to pull a knife and slash the broad face pushed into his. ‘I’m going cabbage eater,’ he sneered. ‘I don’t like yer face. And if I ever see yer out on the street you and I will settle up.’ He turned his back and walked away.
Max watched him depart and filed his face in his memory. He was a man he might like to kill before he grew much older. The former Hamburg seaman was no stranger to violence himself. He had seen it all on some of the toughest and most dangerous waterfronts of the ’50s before he jumped ship in Melbourne and fought the English army at the Eureka Stockade.
He picked up an empty glass and polished it with a clean rag. His mind was not on the task at hand but the face he had just seen. Something about the man worried him. What information about the Duffys could be important enough to warrant the man’s strange questions about Patrick and Martin? They were, after all, only boys. Had the questions been about Daniel then he might have understood. Lawyers had a natural way of making enemies with dissatisfied clients.
With a fixed smile on his face Charlie Heath walked away from the Erin Hotel. He had learned enough to know that the boy Patrick was in all probability the one that Captain Mort wanted dead. Now it was just a matter of identifying what Patrick Duffy looked like. Then all he had to do was plan the time and place to kill him. An eleven-year-old boy was not a problem. It would be the easiest fifty quid he had ever earned!
Charlie Heath passed on his information to Captain Mort who in turn informed Granville White. Once the existence of the son of Michael Duffy was confirmed, Granville’s nights grew even longer. This time there would be no mistakes, he fumed, as there had been with Michael Duffy years earlier. Duffy might be a ghost haunting his life – his bastard son was soon to join his father in death.
TWENTY-ONE
‘There’s nothin’ out here except rocks and flies Harry,’ Frank said to his companion squatting beside him, chipping at a lump of quartz rock with a miner’s pick. ‘Rocks, flies and darkies,’ he added.
Harry grunted as he stood to take the stiffness out of his back. Their expedition away from the established goldfields of the Palmer had proved to be fruitless. That is, with the exception of the blackfella they had bagged the previous day. He stood and gazed around them at the seemingly endless panorama of stunted trees, rocks and shimmering heat haze. ‘That darkie you shot yesterday spoke English,’ he said, expressing something that had nagged him through the night. ‘Bit unusual don’t you think, for a myall?’
Frank tried to spit but his mouth was too dry. ‘Don’t mean he could be trusted,’ he replied. ‘All blackfellas should be shot on sight.’ He stood and hurled the piece of quartz at a lizard basking on a rocky shelf. ‘How’s your water supply?’ he asked, as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
‘Not good,’ Harry replied, swishing the canteen in his hand. ‘Enough for a day and that’s it.’
‘About the same with me. Think it’s time we headed back to that creek we passed a day back. Fill up and head back to the Palmer.’
Harry nodded. Neither had expressed their concern previously. So intent had they been to seek out another gold lode that they had pushed themselves beyond the limits of safety. Food was not a problem. They carried a good supply of flour, tea, sugar and tinned me
at. Water was the vital concern in the semi-arid country they had traversed.
Both men heaved their swags onto their backs and turned to retrace their steps. But they had not gone more than a dozen paces when Harry stopped, shaded his eyes, and peered at the horizon. ‘Frank,’ he said softly. ‘I think I can see a blackfella up there, on that ridge ahead of us.’
Frank stopped and stared in the direction that had been indicated. ‘By Crikey yer right,’ he said. ‘I think it’s the one I shot. Thought the bastard would be crow bait by now.’ He raised his rifle and took careful aim at the tiny figure watching them from the rise.
Wallarie saw the puff of smoke and a second later heard the bang. He smiled grimly at the two tiny dots below him. Stupid bastards should know that he was out of range of the Snider, he thought with bitter satisfaction. Maybe he should teach them how to shoot.
‘He didn’t even move,’ Harry said in an awed voice. ‘It’s like he’s not scared of us.’
‘We need to get closer,’ Frank said, as he reloaded the rifle. ‘Then we’ll see him do a dance.’
But Harry was not so sure. There was something very disconcerting about the wild myall on the ridge. It was as if he knew things that they did not. A cold fear gripped his body. ‘Maybe we just leave him alone and maybe he will leave us alone,’ he said with a shudder. ‘I don’t like the look of this, Frank. He might have some mates somewhere, just waitin’ for us to go after him.’
‘You’ve got that Le Mat,’ Frank said. ‘It’s more than enough to keep any darkie at bay.’ The Le Mat was a powder and ball revolver with the addition of a small shotgun device attached underneath the barrel – a weapon favoured by the Confederate officers of the American Civil War. But its shortcoming was its limited range.
‘I have Frank but I don’t like the idea.’
Frank glanced at him with an expression of contempt. ‘I’m going after the black bastard and finishing him off,’ he said, as he strode away towards the ridge. ‘If yer any kind of mate, you’d come with me.’
Wallarie watched the two men on the flat below him. They appeared to be arguing. His appearance had provoked them as he had planned. He felt further satisfaction when the two men began trudging in his direction as he had hoped they would.
Although his left arm was still too stiff and sore to use effectively he was not worried. He would not need to use it for now as he trailed his long spears in his right hand. All that was important was that the two men pursue him. In doing so he would wear them down and then strike at a time of his choosing. He smiled as the two men struggled up the rocky slope under a blazing sun. ‘Bloody bastards,’ he swore with a chuckle in his curse. ‘Wallarie wait for you.’
All day the spectre of the wild myall taunted them. His image danced in the shimmering haze just out of rifle range as the men stumbled in the body-sapping terrain.
‘He’s leading us away from the creek,’ Harry gasped through cracked lips as he slumped to his knees for a rest. ‘The bastard’s playin’ us like a fish on a hook.’
Frank went down on one knee, using his rifle as a prop. He too had come to realise the situation. The black bastard was cunning, he had to admit to himself. He had altered course in subtle ways and eventually turned the hunt in a direction away from the creek bed. ‘Think it’s time we let the darkie go,’ he reluctantly conceded as he lifted himself to his feet.
~
Bitterly disappointed, Wallarie watched the two men change direction and walk away from him. He had hoped to keep up the chase until nightfall. But he knew where they were going. Like the birds of the arid west at sunset they were in flight for water.
As disappointed as he was Wallarie still felt some satisfaction. He had seen the way the two men had moved across the terrain. He knew that they were weak and thirsty from the arduous pursuit. And a thirsty man was preoccupied with slaking the unbearable torment a raging thirst caused.
In a loping stride, Wallarie set out for the creek so that he would be between them and it just before sunset. For his plan to work he knew he must take a terrible risk, even though his original plan had been to decoy the two men away from the source of life-giving water until the night came. Driven almost mad with thirst they would have been easy to dispatch. But now the odds had unwittingly changed in favour of the prospectors.
Wallarie no longer smiled with grim satisfaction. All commonsense told him that he should withdraw from his plan. But commonsense was not strong enough to overcome his need to wage his own personal war on the Europeans who had once slaughtered his people.
Outnumbered, out-gunned and with his left arm dangling by his side, he did not break his stride. He loped with a distant memory of a night when he and Tom Duffy had set out to hunt down and kill the men who had butchered the last survivors of the dispersal. Against all the odds they had succeeded. Wallarie hoped Tom’s Irish luck was still with him. He knew that the warrior spirit of the cave was; it had told him so the previous night in his visions.
The sun was low on the horizon when Wallarie scrambled up the last ridge. Before him was the apparently dry sandy creek bed and he grinned his satisfaction. He knew that he was ahead of the two prospectors who he had watched wander aimlessly in the scrubby land throughout the day. The shimmering heat and the need for water had meant their condition deteriorated as they had struggled with the rugged terrain. And coupled with nature’s pitiless disregard for them was the unspoken fear that dogged their every step: somewhere out there a man was hunting them as they had hunted him. Critical hours passed before the two prospectors finally found their bearings.
The dull ache of Wallarie’s wound caused him to groan from time to time, an involuntary reaction caused by the relentless strain that he placed on himself to reach the creek before the two white men. But now as he crouched below the rise the pain was forgotten. All that preoccupied him was his plan to place himself precisely where the land worked in his favour. If he were wrong he knew that death was an inevitability.
He slipped his spear on the woomera. The balance felt right and all that was left now was to wait in ambush.
~
The Le Mat in Harry’s hand felt heavy as he trudged a few paces behind Frank. The horizon ahead was a soft blur of mauve shadows creeping through the gullies and the sun a soft orange ball touching the ridge directly to their front. As Harry squinted against the glare Frank took on a strangely elongated shape at the centre of an orange ball. Unable to continue watching him, Harry dropped his eyes to concentrate on his partner’s boot prints which marked the trail they followed. Like a man sleepwalking, he followed the tracks in the dry earth and thought about water. Cool, wet water. The strange myall was forgotten.
Frank’s strangled scream snapped Harry’s obsessive thoughts. Suddenly he felt a fear like none other he had ever experienced.
‘I’m slain Harry,’ Frank choked, as he stumbled blindly into the orange ball.
Harry could vaguely discern that his partner was gripping something that inexplicably was growing out of his front. It was long and slender and Frank gripped it with both hands as he slumped to his knees. Harry froze and blinked against the glare of the setting sun. For a second he saw a ghost-like shape beyond Frank. But it was gone before he could react.
‘Oh Jesus!’ he heard himself gasp. ‘The bastard’s speared you!’
Frank knelt forward against the shaft. His agonised groans grew rapidly weak until they petered out into a low moan. He toppled sideways and Harry instinctively knew that his partner was dead.
Frantically he searched about himself with the pistol raised. But all he saw was a silent land of stunted trees, rocks and red earth. He did not have the strength in his legs to run. Fear had rooted him to the ground as surely as if he were one of the prickly trees around him. Only the unconscious action of firing his pistol – until it eventually clicked on an empty chamber – brought him out of his petrified state. Only then did he drop his gun and run wildly back the way they had trekked.
Wallar
ie watched the panic-stricken man. ‘Stupid bastard,’ he muttered, shaking his head. He had used another one of Tom Duffy’s favourite expressions. The prospector curled on the ground did not move. He was most probably dead. At ten paces – with the sun at his back – he could hardly miss when the prospector had ascended the low ridge. Wallarie remembered the brief second when the man had squinted uncomprehendingly at the shadow materialising out of the sun. It had been like that, those many years earlier, when he had speared the white squatter Donald Macintosh at a waterhole. The prospector had been in the process of raising his rifle when the spear took him through the chest, his rifle clattering amongst the rocks unfired.
With a grunt of pain, the Darambal warrior rose from amongst the rocks and walked cautiously towards the body. In death Frank still gripped the spear shaft, his opaque eyes staring at Wallarie’s feet.
Satisfied that the man no longer posed a threat, Wallarie squatted beside the body, and tugged away the bed-roll wrapped around the dead man’s shoulders. He unlashed the rope that held it together and grinned at the treasure that spilled out: tea, sugar, flour and tinned meat. And even better still, a twist of dark brown tobacco to savour, after he had eaten the man’s supplies.
With a contented sigh Wallarie used the dead man’s knife to open a tin of meat and wolfed down the warm fatty contents. When his hunger had been sated he gathered the remaining food supplies into the blanket. He ignored the rifle; he knew its possession would mark him as a dangerous blackfella to the army of Europeans around the Palmer. To all intents and purposes he would be an inconspicuous, solitary myall trekking through the land they now claimed as their own. That way, to most he would not be perceived as a threat.