McCullock's Gold

by Lindsay Johannsen

  Chapter 17. Parking Under A Gum Tree; and The Temporary Permit

  The next morning, as per instructions, Cadney was ready at six. Frazier was late, however. Danny Papa was in a talkative mood and his guest was unable to get away until twenty past.

  When the police wagon finally wheeled into view Cadney was sitting at the kitchen table with a second mug of tea, watching out the window and rehearsing what he’d say to give the copper a stir. On seeing the wagon swing into his street he gulped down the last mouthful and rushed out the door.

  Frazier saw him running along the driveway. He moved onto the gravel verge and braked, inadvertently skidding the Toyota’s wheels in the loose rubble. Cadney ripped open the door and threw himself in as the wagon slid past.

  “Sheldon’s not at Jervois!” he yelled urgently, slamming the door and grabbing at the seat belt. “Space aliens got him! Dream-time Spirits told me last night!”

  The policeman glared at him and jammed the lever into second.

  “We’ll find a note at his campsite they reckon! But it’s in code! ‘—Bread, meat, long-life milk, sugar, fruit and Weet-Bix’ it says, but they’ve all been crossed out and…”

  “Forget that bullshit!” Frazier barked. “We have to get in to Alice!” He gunned the engine savagely and dropped the clutch; the Toyota rocketed away in a shower of stones and gravel. “There’s a message from the hospital!” he added, ripping the lever through to third and stomping on the accelerator again.

  “Shit! What was the message?!!

  “It’s from the mortuary! They’ve found you a brain!”

  Cadney was still laughing as they hurtled through the creek and up the far-side bank.

  Around the bend on level going some cattle were walking along the road. Frazier hit the horn and slowed. “The lesson here is this,” he continued. “Don’t mess with the Senior Constable first thing in the morning, especially when he’s running late.” As the animals galloped off into the spinifex he sped up again.

  Cadney had sobered by then. “What. So it’s okay after that?”

  “After that you can take your chances. Don’t complain if you lose a bit of skin, though.”

  At the highway Frazier turned left. After recrossing the Bonya Creek he went left again, onto the mines road. Before long they came to where stormwater had flowed across the formation a few weeks earlier. It had badly eroded the gravel surface, causing subsequent traffic to slow and spread out.

  Cadney had Frazier stop so he could walk ahead and look at the tracks. After a brief inspection he beckoned the policeman forward and climbed into the wagon again.

  A couple of road trains had been to Lucy Creek a day or so back, he said, and before that someone in a car had gone through. Underneath those tracks were what looked like the Jervois Station four-be – except that its tyres seemed newer than he remembered. There was no sign of the Nissan but with the road trains having been along he couldn’t be certain of it.

  “The latest tracks were the young blokes from Bonya,” he added, “out hunting this morning in their baldy-tyred Falcon. They had a kangaroo, too.”

  “Yeah? Bull shit. How could you know that?”

  “From the wood in the washouts back there. They lost a piece of gidgee off the roof rack.”

  “So?”

  “Well think about it Fraz. Why bother to get wood if your mother doesn’t need it to cook a roo?”

  Frazier changed the subject. Despite the apparent lack of tracks, Alice Springs would still want him to follow up Maskell’s comment and check the place, he said. —And besides, he thought; I still want those rocks for the garden.

  As they approached the mines Cadney suggested they park under a gum tree in the Unka Creek and start their inspection at Reward Hill, on the northern end of the field. Not being overly familiar with the place, Frazier agreed.

  “Bring a plastic bag or something,” Cadney added as he stepped out. “There’s some good specimens up there.”

  Frazier went to the rear of the wagon and unpacked one of the shopping bags he’d earlier dropped straight into the car fridge. He and Cadney then crossed to the far side of the stony channel and started climbing.

  Most of the old pits and trenches they happened on were shallow affairs dug in richer patches on the line of lode. None required more than a glancing inspection. Closer to the summit they came to a broad levelled-off area, formed from the mullock hauled out as the Reward Shaft was developed.

  Watching them from the shaft’s steel headframe was a large wedge-tailed eagle. At a moment of its own choosing the great bird casually opened its wings and lifted into the pinnacle hill’s gentle updraft. There, without so much as a wing beat, it began circling, high above them.

  Beneath a heavy steel mesh cover was an iron ladder and the shaft’s bush-timber lining. The timbering went down about five metres, beyond which the ladder disappeared into the darkness. Frazier produced a torch from his belt and shone it downward but its light was swallowed in the gloom. He switched it off and stood up to check around the headframe.

  Cadney already had. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Nothing here’s been disturbed so you won’t have to go down.”

  Not that he would have done anyway, Frazier thought. He set off toward the next series of trenches. Cadney followed.

  As they approached the northern end of the level area a white Toyota station wagon came into view. It was parked near a group of old workings on the lower ground farther north. A short distance away two figures could be seen at an isolated pit. One was in the pit digging.

  Frazier assumed they were Company men, most likely doing sampling and reconnaissance work to assess if the field was worth exploring. Two operations had been mounted at Jervois in the past and both had failed. But the economics of mining were constantly changing and from time to time others would come to look over the area. Doubtless one of the two down there would be a geologist doing just that.

  He turned his attention to the nearest of the old trenches. On the wall opposite was a patch of bright blue azurite. Frazier climbed down to retrieve a specimen.

  Cadney’s reaction was quite different. Despite the distance he’d recognised the two men instantly and had frozen mid step.

  “Simon Tyler and Mister bloody Watts,” he mouthed quietly to himself. “What a surprise. We have an account to settle, you and I, and here you are, still in the neighbourhood. How very very obliging of you.” Once Frazier was out of the way he would see to putting matters right.

  Then he suddenly realised: their being here meant his sample switching had not been discovered. If so they’d have gone straight back to Appoota Mbulkara. And as he recalled their knowledge of that secret place his belly filled with bile again.

  So why then had the shonky mongrels come back? And why in particular to Jervois? There was no gold here. And nothing of significance was going to be found where they were digging. That particular pit was well away from the line of lode, a fact which should be obvious with Tyler claiming to be a geologist.

  Cadney backed away, taking care not to appear against the skyline. He then crossed to the other side of the level area and moved forward again, this time using an old ore heap for cover.

  Hidden from view by the mound he watched the two take turns at digging, all grim and silent as he contemplated the nature of his payback. Then a sudden abrupt rushing sound interrupted his thoughts and a touch came on his shoulder.

  His father! Beside him! He spun around, startled.

  No one! His mind was playing tricks. Yet he could almost have reached out and touched him. ―But the half-glimpsed image! Black skin and...

  He looked up. The eagle had resumed its circling above the hill. Ashen-faced and shaken Cadney backed up the way he’d come then went to join Frazier, the promise he’d made ringing loud in his ears.

  The wedge-tailed eagle was his father’s Dreaming.

  By this time Frazier had climbed from the trench and was looking over a nearby mullock dump for specimens. Wh
en Cadney walked up he said: “What’s with you and the eagle? I thought it was going to rip your bloody head off. I’d have yelled, too, but I was hoping it might have another go.” No reply came so Frazier told of his intention to go down and ask if the men with the Toyota had seen Sheldon or the Nissan.

  Cadney suggested using an old access road on the western side of the hill. The track there was easy going, he explained, while the northern and eastern slopes were rocky and steep. It came down a little way from where the white Toyota was parked, not a great distance from the old Great Northern workings.

  Going that way certainly suited Jack Cadney; it meant he’d stay hidden from Tyler and Watts. He intended keeping it that way too; near the bottom of the slope he began limping.

  “You go on,” he told Frazier. “I’ve got a stone in my boot.” He put his foot on a convenient boulder and began untying the laces. “I need a leak, too,” he added when the policeman hesitated.

  Frazier looked at him a moment without commenting, then continued walking. Closer to where the men were digging he shouted a greeting.

  The intrusion took the pair by surprise. The heavier more senior-looking one tried to wave casually but was flustered by Frazier’s uniform, while the smaller man abandoned his shovel and grabbed half a dozen rocks from the rubble. He dropped a couple as he stumbled from the pit then dropped a couple more when he bent down to pick them up.

  The first man assisted, following which he feigned a great interest in them, making over-enthusiastic comments in a loud voice while pretending to examine each one with his hand lens. As the policeman walked up he stowed the rocks out of sight in the rear of the Cruiser.

  Composure half recovered the pair turned around. Frazier introduced himself and asked if they’d seen the bronze Nissan. They had seen no one, the senior man replied without return introductions.

  The smaller man said nothing. He kept looking at the ground, eyes darting this way and that. Suddenly he remembered the pick and shovel and jumped back into the pit to retrieve them, at the same time “inadvertently” tromping some rubble back into the hole they’d been digging. When he climbed out Frazier asked if they’d been at the mines very long.

  The first man gave an ambiguous answer then waffled on expansively about mineralisation and lens structures, large scale mining development and capitalisation – all in the manner of a chummy mining company executive. Then, after judging what he thought should be an acceptable amount of conversation,

  he checked his watch, affected an air of surprise and urgency, rebuked the smaller man sharply about the time and ordered him into the vehicle. An excuse about an Alice Springs appointment was offered and an apology given, then he joined the other in the Cruiser and drove away.

  Frazier was suspicious. Everything about their performance reeked of an act – and a second rate one at that. He walked over and looked in the pit but could see nothing of note. “You should have been here,” he said as Cadney walked up. “I just heard the greatest load of bullshit since Lasseter turned up with his story about a five-kilometre long gold reef.”

  Cadney joined him alongside the trench. He looked at the fresh excavation in the northern-end floor but made no comment.

  “I didn’t get much of a look at the samples they grabbed,” Frazier went on, “and I don’t know much about copper, but what I did see just looked like ordinary rocks. Now why do you suppose they would they have done that?”

  “Well there’s certainly no copper here, Fraz. This was just a prospecting pit. You can tell that by the stuff in the mullock heap. Some old-timers found a vein here and dug down hoping it might widen. Whatever good stuff came out of it went with them.”

  “Yeah, and those two were pretty unhappy about me turning up, and I don’t reckon it was just because I’m a copper. I’d bet a month’s pay the buggers are up to something. I got their rego number though and they said they were going to Alice, so I’ll get Traffic to check them out.”

  Frazier looked back at his assistant. “So why didn’t you want them to see you?”

  Cadney had expected this and knew he’d have to be careful. “I’ve met them before,” he began. “Their names are…”

  “What?!! You know them?”

  “Yeah! They’re old friends! Just lemme explain!

  “Their names are Simon Tyler and Alex Watts. Tyler is the big bloke. They came to Bonya a couple of weeks back looking for the senior man for the Marshall Bar country. That’s a waterhole south-east of here, in the Marshall River.

  “It’s on our tribal land, see, on my father’s country. They said they wanted to go prospecting in the desert south of there and needed a guide. In itself that wasn’t an issue, and Dad would certainly have enjoyed the trip, but the poor old bloke wasn’t up to it at the time and instead said I should go.

  “One of the hills down there is part of his dreaming legend. There’s not much to it and it’s nothing really special; he just wanted me to turn them away if they got too close.

  “I was happy to go, too. You know, have a day out, earn a few dollars. I wasn’t too concerned about the hill though.

  “See, the country down there is just endless, Fraz. I mean it’s kilometre after kilometre of sand and spinifex and the hill is just a pimple. Even when you’re looking for the thing it can be hard to find so there’s bugger all chance of stumbling on it.

  “Anyway, that’s how I came to meet them – when they came back the next day.”

  “I didn’t say anything about this to Tyler and Watts, of course. I just thought that if we did get anywhere near it I’d explain things and ask them to turn away.

  “But it didn’t work. They had Google Earth and a GPS on board and were checking out all the little hills and outcrops. The only reason they wanted one of us with them was to make the whole thing look legitimate. Course when we did eventually approach the place I explained things. It made no difference though; the buggers kept going.

  “I thought they must have misunderstood me so I told them again and warned them away, but they just said to shut up. I got really angry then and started abusing the shit out of ‘em – you know, for their lack of respect – so the mongrels kicked me out of the Toyota and left me to walk home. And like it’s only about fifty bloody kilometres.”

  Nothing was said about Tyler and Watts’ real motive for being there or the shots they’d fired after him.

  “I don’t know how long they stayed or where they went after that,” Cadney continued, “but the next day back at Marshall Bar I heard their Cruiser crossing upstream from the soakage. They were too far away for me to see, though. Then back on the Plenty Highway I got lucky. The Tarlton Downs station truck came along and gave me a ride home.”

  “But you never reported it. So why not?”

  “Well I was going to at first because I was really angry about it, but later I changed my mind. I decided instead to track the mongrels down and have their balls for breakfast.

  “I bloody would’ve, too, but for my father. He ordered me off. He told me to calm down and demanded I forget it. The problem is he knows me too well; the old bugger made me swear on it.

  “See my Dad thinks things over a lot more than I do and doesn’t get so worked up. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘They’re just a couple of stupid whitefellas from down south. Sure they’re a bit full of themselves and, yes, they did the wrong thing.

  “‘But think about this,’ he told me. ‘If that’s the worst thing that happens to you in life then you haven’t got much to worry about.’

  “He was right of course,” Cadney added, “and I’m not so angry any more. But after the business here today I’d sure like to know what the pricks are up to.”

  “Well let’s get after ‘em then. I’d like to ask them a few questions myself.”

  “Nah. Let it go. They’ll be half way to the Bonya Creek by now in that big Toyota. Don’t worry though; if they’re up to something they’re sure to be back.”

  Frazier wasn’t as certain
but he let the matter slide.