by Peter Watt
Dropped or not, it did not stop Kate from feeling anger towards the man who had chosen to ignore her. She was not used to being ignored by any man. But with the anger there was also a yearning to once again hear the slow drawl and see the bronzed face above the beard of the man who had come to find a place in her heart. It could not be love, she convinced herself. Merely a very deep affection for him.
THIRTY-ONE
The malaria had taken its toll on Luke Tracy and the fever was still on him as he shivered uncontrollably, slumped in the saddle astride his mount.
He knew from the bearings he had taken with his small brass compass that he was somewhere south of Cape York Peninsula in the shallow dry valleys of low and spindly trees left brittle by the long dry season. He also knew that his big and faithful mare was close to collapse as she plodded on without questioning the foolishness of man’s quest for the yellow metal.
Together horse and rider had faced jungle, desert, scrub and hostile tribesmen. And together they had forged a bond based on mutual need. The big mare was tough and carried an old scar on her flank from a spear wound and she had many more scars from the terrible cuts of the rainforest vines as badges of her courage.
Time had lost all meaning for Luke as he swayed in the saddle, fighting to stay conscious, his existence now measured in the fact that he was alive to see the sun rise and set each day. The fever came to him in alternating waves of burning hot and icy cold deliriums, with each malarial attack threatening to be the fatal last.
His precious supply of quinine, his two packhorses and most of his prospecting equipment were long gone to the terrible tangle of gullies and jungle that now lay behind him in the craggy mist-covered mountain range he had traversed weeks earlier. At least now he was beyond the terrible rainforest hell and back down on the plains. He also knew it could get worse if he persisted in pushing himself north. He might have survived the dark and green hell of the tropical rainforests but he still had the endless miles of scrubland and craggy hills that spread west, north and south ahead.
According to his last estimation, he was still eighty to ninety miles south-west of the river and if there was gold in payable amounts it had to be between his present location and the river.
Unconsciously he touched his damaged shoulder where the long hardwood spear had ripped through his body a year earlier in Burke’s Land, when he had been camped by a water hole at night. His first inkling of danger had drifted on the balmy night breezes to his camp fire. He had immediately recognised the sweet and not unpleasant scent of burning followed by the crackling hissing sound of grass blazing with its deep orange glow that could be seen through the stark scrub trees of the red earth plain. A grassfire front sweeping down on his camp site in a place where he was alone, or at least he’d thought he was!
He had snatched for his pistol and rifle as the wall of flames silhouetted the lines of naked Aboriginals advancing on him with spears fitted to woomeras. A volley of shots from his pistol had caused the advancing warriors to waver. Then a deadly shower of fire-hardened spears had plunged down around him and one of the spears had found its target.
Luke had been flung sideways as the barbed spear tore through his shoulder. The pain was beyond anything that he had ever experienced and he accepted death as inevitable. His revolver was empty and the ball and powder weapon too cumbersome to load under the circumstances. Badly wounded, he was helpless in the face of the overwhelming number of tribesmen advancing on him. It was only really a matter of how he would die: by a spear or a bone-crushing blow from a hardwood club. What occurred next gave the normally agnostic American a greater respect for the Divine Being whom he had taken for granted during his thirty-five years on earth.
Out of the night sky came the shattering explosive crack of lightning to hit between himself and the advancing warriors. Stunned, he stood and watched without comprehending that the tribesmen were scattering into the night to escape the spirit world’s irrational bad temper. He had slumped with a groan and fallen heavily into the rich red earth of the Gulf Country as a gentle breeze played across the plains to force the grassfire away from him.
Throughout the night he lay in a throbbing haze of pain, and when the morning dawned he was dimly aware that two bearded faces hovered over him, muttering how lucky he was to be alive.
The fellow prospectors had seen the grassfire from their camp site miles away and, acting on a hunch, they had ridden across the plain to the water hole. As they had suspected, the fire denoted an attack on one of their fellow trekkers on the vast plains of the Gulf. At the worst, they might find a body and they would provide a Christian burial for it, as such was the unwritten law of the frontier. Instead they had found Luke unconscious with the spear protruding from his shoulder.
The operation to remove the spear had almost killed Luke. One of the bearded prospectors had served in Britain’s colonial army and his service had taken him through the campaigns in Africa, where such wounds were not infrequent.
With a thin knife blade honed to razor sharpness and sterilised in the fire, he’d cut and probed the wound from front and back while Luke was tied to a log and given the traditional gag of the wounded soldier – a lead musket ball which he succeeded in biting through in his searing agony. But the former soldier was a talented amateur surgeon and the operation was successful. Infection did not set in and, after two weeks of recuperating with his newly acquired friends, Luke was well enough to strike out alone again.
The parting carried no sentimentality. What had been done to save him was simply an expectation of bushmen for each other on the frontier. A few grunted words of thanks and good wishes and then the shimmering plains of the Gulf Country swallowed men who were most likely never to see each other again.
Alone, astride his mount on the lonely plains, Luke had often thought about the miraculous lightning strike that had certainly saved his life. The lightning had come from the northern sky. Providence dictated that his salvation meant that he should ride as far north as possible in search of El Dorado.
But first he had returned to civilisation to replenish his supplies. From Townsville, he had posted his letter to his old friend Solomon Cohen in Rockhampton, informing him of his plan to trek north into the Palmer River region.
But perseverance had a limit and now, finally, he had reached his. To go on was certain death from starvation or fever. To turn back now gave him a chance. To the south lay the white man’s outposts and maybe a lonely homestead or even one of the tiny towns sprouting in the wake of the bullock teams where he could rest up and recover from his gruelling ordeal.
He now knew that it had been a terrible mistake to think he could take on the tropical rainforests that covered the coastal mountains of north Queensland. The tangles of liana vines that strangled the giant trees had been like binding ropes to hold him back and, in the dank and gloomy forests, he had found himself in a world of primeval cycads, ferns and fungi that lived off the wealth of rotting death under a canopy of tall trees whose majestic crowns paid homage to the sun.
On the ground were the phosphorescence of decay and the bone-chilling mists that swirled slowly, wraith-like between the trunks of the trees. And as he had climbed higher on the range, the colder the eternally swirling mists had become. Day after day of being beaten back by the parasitic vines that strangled the forest giants had sapped his strength and that of his brave and sturdy horses.
In the haunted forests of ghostly twilight, the carcasses of his two packhorses now became fodder for the buttress roots of the giant trees. The American had spent long and lonely nights ranting in a nightmare of fevered dreams at a world devoid of light. And there were days of sweat and exhaustion crawling ever upwards onto the ridges with the pygmy-like inhabitants of the forests watching curiously his every move from the silent shadows.
He had stubbornly pushed on until he was at the top of the majestic range where the rainforest gave way to the lightly timbered and undulating plains of the west. Then came the time
of stumbling and crashing down into the narrow valleys in a cycle of pain, sweat and exhaustion that would have killed lesser men than the determined American.
The warming sun of the plains could not take away the cold mists that had seeped into his body to remind him of the silent terror that had been the tropical rainforests high in the ranges.
He now found himself in a land equally as hostile. It was a lonely place to die.
His mare picked her own way along a valley floor. She did not need his hand on the rein to guide her as she was an intelligent animal and she sensed that it was up to her to keep them going.
‘We aren’t going back that way, old girl,’ he promised her wearily as he rode slumped in the saddle, too sick and spent to care any more. He had pushed himself beyond the established white man’s frontier. To continue was certain death and it was time to turn back. He pulled down on the reins but the mare propped of her own accord.
At first he thought in his fevered mind that she was able to read his despairing thoughts as she stopped with her ears pricked forward and pawed at the ground with her hoof. Something had caught her attention.
Luke dropped the reins and eased his Sharps rifle from its scabbard by his knee. He thumbed back the hammer and raised the rifle to his shoulder. The mare snorted as he scanned the silent scrub, searching for the shadows that moved. The fever was still on him and he knew that he had little hope of defending himself against a concerted attack by hostile tribesmen and he was in territory where a man needed all his senses to stay alive. The fever had effectively dulled his mind as surely as if he were in a drunken stupor. Luke felt very vulnerable in the sparse scrub.
He scanned the surrounding area searching for movement and saw nothing except the straggly rough-barked trees eking out a tenuous living from the termite-infested soil. A nerve at the corner of his eye twitched. What would it be? he thought in his despair. A stone axe or a throwing stick that might suddenly whirl through the still air? Or maybe the swift and silent hardwood spear to pluck him from the saddle?
His scrutiny came to rest on the bundle of rags to his front in a place where there should not be European rags. The bundle moved!
He kicked his horse forward until he reached the rags and slid from the saddle to kneel beside a white man, blackened by long exposure to the sun.
The man reacted by flinging up his arm as if to ward off a blow when Luke bent to help him. A fetid smell of decaying flesh rose and Luke could see that the stranger’s leg was swollen with putrefaction under the remains of his tattered trousers. A broken shaft of a spear could clearly be seen embedded in the flesh. The man was dying.
‘You a white man?’ The man croaked the question feebly as he brought his arm down and turned his head slowly to blink at the framed silhouette kneeling over him.
‘I’m a white man,’ Luke replied to reassure him. ‘Luke Tracy out of California.’
‘A Yankee.’ The man groaned painfully as he struggled to sit up. ‘Help me up, Yank.’
Luke rolled him gently onto his back. It was obvious that the man was beyond any hope of surviving his exhausting ordeal. His skin was hot to touch and the rotting leg stank of advanced decay. He let out a loud groan when Luke moved him.
‘Tried to get the spear out,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘But the bloody shaft broke off in me leg. Don and Charlie gone. Myalls got ’em. Almost got me. Don’t think they have seen many white men before. Not many guns anyway,’ he gasped in short and pain-racked bursts. ‘What are you?’ he asked when he was able to focus on Luke.
‘Prospector,’ Luke answered and the dying man gave a choking and bitter laugh as if mocking the American. The laugh took much of the man’s reserves of strength. ‘Another bloody fool like meself,’ he whispered.
Luke left the man to fetch a water canteen from his horse and he returned to press it to the man’s lips. The prospector had trouble swallowing the brackish water and he sighed when he had finished drinking. An expression of serenity came over his bearded face.
‘Thanks, matey,’ he said gratefully, grasping Luke by the wrist. ‘Almost as good as a cold beer on a hot day.’
Luke helped the man into a sitting position and placed him with his back to a stunted tree. The prospector gazed down at his putrefying leg where flies crawled on the wound seeking a place to lay their eggs. From death comes life.
‘Too late to take the leg off,’ he said more as a statement than a question. Luke nodded.
‘Then I’m goin’ to die soon,’ he added bitterly. ‘Die just when we found the River of Gold. Don, Charlie an’ me. Found the bloody river. An’ the myalls found us. Hit us on the river. Don an’ Charlie never had a hope. The myalls was big bastards. An’ their spears went straight through Don an’ Charlie. But I got a few of ’em before they got me. Been a running fight . . . don’t know how long. Two days . . . maybe three.’
Luke listened patiently to the dying man. ‘You think I’m ravin’ mad, don’t you?’ he said fiercely and he thrust his hand in his pocket. When he brought his hand out Luke’s registration of utter surprise pleased the prospector, who held up a nugget of gold as big as a hen’s egg. ‘Just picked this one up as easy as you please. An’ I got more.’ He struggled feebly to retrieve the other nuggets in his pockets but Luke stopped him. The dying prospector’s exertions were overpowering his weakened condition. Each word brought him a step closer to death.
‘I believe you. Just take it easy and I’ll get you something to eat,’ Luke said gently.
‘Keep the tucker, matey,’ the prospector countered. ‘No sense in wasting good food on a dyin’ man.’
Luke ignored his protests and rummaged in his saddlebags for some strips of leathery beef jerky. Although the prospector had protested, he finally relented and took the food gratefully. Luke watched the prospector pop a piece of meat into his mouth and chew slowly, savouring the strong meaty taste.
Luke guessed the prospector was his age . . . or thereabouts . . . and he had what Luke had come to recognise as an Australian accent, as opposed to the rich variety of predominantly British accents from all Britain’s regions. He must have been one very tough man in his time, Luke thought. To have survived as long as he had. The prospector was near starvation and it was obvious that he had engaged the Aboriginal tribesmen of the north for more than two or three days. Luke could see that the leg had been rotting for some time.
‘Terrible thing to die alone without a mate,’ the prospector said dreamily after swallowing the jerky. ‘All the gold in the world won’t buy a good mate. That’s something that just happens, Yank.’ His shrunken stomach refused to take any more food and even the small piece he had swallowed made him feel nauseous. He was slipping in and out of a blissful world where there was no pain. Just a long and deep sleep. His spirit was ready to leave and tears streamed down his sun-blackened face as he cried silently.
Luke turned away. Better a man cry in private. For the prospector, his tears were those of regret. Regret for finding a fortune – but losing the woman he loved. Somewhere there was a woman waiting and she would wait no more. None of it had been worth the years on the plains and in the hills, forever searching for a dream that could not bring happiness. When his tears were spent, the prospector lay back and fell into a fevered sleep.
Luke set up camp after he made the prospector as comfortable as possible. Finding the dying man had given him a mirror to his own life. The dying prospector was himself, in another time and another place. A spear, starvation, snakebite or a fall from his horse. One way or the other, death would come.
But he did not want to die alone in a place so far from the giant sequoias of his beloved California. Never before had Luke realised how much he missed the country of his birth.
He gazed out at the endless grey scrub and the ancient eroded red hills that hedged the dry valley. Fleeting memories came to him of another place and another time. Memories of stately forests of dark green fir trees whose tops swayed and sighed to the cool mountain bre
ezes of northern California. Homesick memories of the splendid beauty of the majestic Rocky Mountains under a white blanket of winter snows and the pristine clear mountain streams gurgling sweetly across the green grass-covered valley floors.
Memories of his childhood, growing up among the summer fields of golden maize basking in the warmth of a gentle sun, crept to him with a soft kiss of the woman who had been his mother.
How old was he now? Thirty-three . . . thirty-four . . . Luke could not remember. The years of roaming were a blur that stretched back to the singular pivotal points in his life. Of mining camps and the rebellion. Of his dead wife and child. He was hardly aware that he was weeping. He was homesick for the land of his birth and yet he had grown to accept the harshness of the land that he had spent half his life roaming around in search of the elusive big strike. Maybe it was time to go home.
But there was Kate . . .
He could see her face in front of him, her beautiful warm smile, and for just a fleeting instant he thought he could smell the hint of lavender on the hot breeze. It was as if she were with him – as she had been with him when they had ridden together in search of her father’s grave.
Instinctively he cast about to see if she was preparing the camp fire or hobbling the horses. But when he gazed around, he saw only the harsh and ancient land of the shallow sun-baked valley. Kate was gone from him and had become a part of the shimmering haze of the late afternoon.
Nearby, the dying prospector twitched in his sleep and his fevered words were a rambling nonsensical monologue. Luke settled in for the evening to wait for the prospector’s death and hoped that it would be soon. The longer he had to stay by the dying man’s side, the less chance he had of returning south alive.
During the night when the fire had burnt to a soft glow Luke heard the prospector call to him. He sat beside the man, who lay very still, staring with wide eyes up at the constellation of the Southern Cross.