McCullock's Gold

by Lindsay Johannsen

  Chapter 20. The Amazing Coincidence; and Being Home By Ten

  At nine o’clock the next morning Cadney went to the store manager’s house and knocked on the door. He wanted bread and tinned tucker to take with him for lunch and some fuel for the Holden. Danny Papa reminded him tersely that it was Sunday and told him to bugger off.

  Cadney then explained how the Harts Range copper had asked him to check the main road to see if the Nissan they’d rescued had left the highway anywhere.

  “What an amazing coincidence,” Dan said brightly. “I was just about to go over to your place and suggest that you and I should go hunting somewhere, and just what exactly do you think we might need?”

  Cadney realised he was cornered. Still, he thought, Danny would be company, if not much value as a second pair of eyes.

  Half an hour later they left the Community at speed, the yellow Number One Holden’s engine-howl now considerably louder than before, courtesy of the second hand sports-type muffler Cadney had installed the previous evening. At the highway he turned east, after which he slowed to a moderate pace so they could monitor the roadsides for tracks. As they tootled along he told Dan how the Nissan had actually been off the road in the bush.

  “Frazier was told to go out and recover it,” he said, “so he took me along to help.”

  On coming to the three ghost gums Cadney felt like kicking himself. This would have been the perfect opportunity to picket and straighten the damaged tree.

  A short time later they left the east Jervois grassland and descended the shallow gradient into the Tarlton spinifex country. Past the giant ant hill they went and across the boundary grid, then on to where he and the policeman had turned from the highway.

  Cadney stopped the car and Dan stepped out to stretch his legs. “So where’s the pub?” he asked, but Cadney was feeling frustrated and made no reply. They’d found no evidence of the Nissan stopping anywhere or leaving the road and all he could do was sit there wondering what best to do next.

  Then he remembered: he and Frazier had been checking out an abandoned vehicle. Certainly the possibility existed for it to have been stolen, but at that point there was no reason to think that foul play might have been involved.

  He was sure he’d have noticed anything unusual while they were following the tracks in from the highway, too, but he couldn’t be certain. The wheel marks were winding and rough; not being the driver meant he wasn’t paying as much attention as he might.

  At one point he’d been rummaging between the seats for his water bottle; at another he was watching some wild camels. He and Frazier had been talking as well, so he could easily have missed something.

  Best that he check, Cadney decided, and this time he would concentrate. The tracks were that much older now and he and Frazier had driven in and out over them, but despite this he still might see something he’d missed. He called for Danny to get in. “What now?” Dan asked after closing the door.

  Cadney said nothing. He swung the Holden down through the side drain then powered it over the windrow in second gear, right on the older tyre marks. From there he wheeled it left and right along the serpentine tracks, the station wagon bucking and lurching as it rolled over the closely spaced spinifex tussocks.

  Dan hung on as best he could, surprised at their suddenly going bush. There was something decidedly odd about this Nissan business and he wanted to ask questions, but Cadney was all grim and silent. Instead he held his tongue and concentrated on watching in front.

  Ten minutes heaving and bouncing northward brought them to a couple of broad low-lying sand ridges, both of which the Holden managed without trouble. Then, after another kilometre or so, a much higher sand ridge came into view.

  To Danny’s consternation the tracks went straight up and over it, and the closer to the wind-rippled sand they came the softer and more treacherous looking it appeared. Fine for a four wheel drive, he thought anxiously, but a conventional vehicle?

  Getting bogged could mean a long wait out on the highway – or an even longer walk home. He stole a quick glance at the driver.

  Cadney appeared unconcerned. As they approached the bottom he switched smartly into first then rocketed the car up the loosely packed gradient with revs and determination – engine wailing, sand showering behind. Once over the top he eased off the accelerator and changed to second for the down-slope.

  Dan was amazed. “Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, the relief evident in his voice. “This old tub certainly gets along all right.”

  Cadney watched grimly ahead. “Yeah; four wheel drive,” he replied noncommittally.

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “No it’s not. We’ve got four wheels and Jack Cadney is driving. What more do you want?”

  “A seat with a full set of springs wouldn’t go bad,” Dan suggested, “but please don’t think I’m complaining. It’s a good thing you’ve got an old blanket stuffed in the hole though. I’m almost sitting high enough to see where we’re going.”

  On reaching the Nissan’s abandonment site Cadney wheeled the car about in a screaming half-donut and headed straight back to the highway.

  Dan gave him an enquiring look but Cadney made no comment. He’d seen nothing to indicate that one or both of the original vehicles might have stopped or left the track anywhere and for his money enough time had been spent there already.

  He also knew he owed Danny Papa an explanation, so as they lurched and bounced along the wheelmarks he told of his earlier trip with Frazier and how thoroughly he’d checked the place then. What he’d wanted to do this time, he said, was look at the track itself, in case he might have missed something.

  And that was all. Dan had hoped for information about the Nissan and its driver but Cadney had gone silent again. On reaching the highway the non-communication grew worse: Cadney went east rather than homeward and still said nothing.

  Turning that way was totally unexpected and it left Danny wondering what Cadney was up to. Hopefully his intentions would be revealed and hopefully before too long.

  After seven or eight minutes the Arthur Creek’s broad sandy channel came into view and Cadney eased off his speed.

  Once down the bank he pulled to the side of the gravelled crossing and parked under the shade of a rivergum. “Lunch time,” he announced as he switched off the engine. Without another word he stepped out, closed the door and began gathering firewood.

  Dan Papa was getting cranky by this time. Why give him the treatment, he wondered. Sure he’d talked his way into coming but Cadney had agreed to it happily enough.

  He went to the rear of the wagon and dropped the tailgate, then dragged out the carton of provisions they’d brought. After retrieving a number of items he set about making some sandwiches.

  Cadney took a billycan from his steel tucker box. He gave it a rinse then half filled it with water and put it alongside the flames.

  Just then an empty road train came thundering down the creek bank, catching the pair by surprise. As it roared by on the gravel crossing its sixty-two tyres and three double deck cattle trailers threw up a storm of churning red dust.

  The two retreated up the creek a short distance and waited for the air to clear. A light northerly breeze had stolen sound of the truck’s approach and this now saved them from the worst of it.

  Back at the fire the water was boiling so Cadney made the tea. Dan surveyed the dust covered sandwiches briefly then removed the top slices of bread and replaced them with fresh ones from the packet, glancing up occasionally in case a second road train was coming.

  Cadney joined him at the tailgate. Without speaking he retrieved two mugs from the tuckerbox and rinsed them with hot tea from the billy. He then filled them, added sugar to one and stirred it, then took tea and a sandwich to a nearby fallen log. There he sat to eat his lunch, all the while staring into the distance.

  Dan sat on the tailgate with his own sandwich. He’d not seen Cadney like this before. Usually the fool had plenty to say, most of which y
ou wouldn’t believe in a fit.

  But the issue troubling Cadney had nothing to do with Danny Papa, nor was Dan the target of the other’s moody silence.

  Jack Cadney’s problem lay within himself. Here was a simple clear cut matter of tracking logic, yet he’d not been able to resolve it. In fact it had totally confounded him, in the process puncturing his almost-bulletproof sense of Always Being Right.

  This sort of thing rarely troubled him. ―Jackson Cadney? Wrong? —Naaah. He must have just missed something. Not his usual form of course but not impossible.

  So what could it be? A flaw in his thinking perhaps? Some other explanation? He went over the whole business again … only to come to the same conclusion: Somewhere, between the Telstra pole and where the tracks turned northward into the spinifex, either the abandoned Nissan or the vehicle accompanying it must have left the highway.

  Must have. Dead set. Done deal Danger Man; simple as that.

  Except there were no tracks.

  …Yet there had to be.

  Suddenly he realised that his thoughts were going in circles and getting him nowhere. “Let me ask you something, Dan,” he said abruptly, in a heartbeat switching from sullen silence to eager conversationalist. “Say the Great Serpent Spirit offered you one wish. What do you reckon you’d ask for?”

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “No. And I don’t mean like for a million dollars or a trolley load of gold or the free choice of the world’s most beautiful women. Nothing like that. I mean like something of substance.”

  “What, like a lifetime’s supply of beer? That’s got substance. But I’d be happy to settle for one of the previous options.”

  “Shit, Dan. You’re bloody hopeless.”

  Dan was glad to see the change of mood. This was more the Jack Cadney he knew.

  “Just stirring mate,” he admitted. “Well I dunno, I’ve never really thought about it. But now that you ask, I reckon I’d like to know where all the missing kids are buried that you hear about, and who the mongrels are that put them there. That’s what I’d wish for. Then I’d stalk the stinkin’ bastards and...

  “Ahh, don’t get me started. Why? What would you wish for?”

  “A lifetime’s supply of beer, of course. It’d be a pretty short life though, so it wouldn’t amount to…”

  “What?!! After getting up me for...”

  “Just paying you back, Dan. —Nah, that’s what I ask people sometimes – you know, to see what they come up with. It gives me a bit of insight as to what makes ‘em tick.”

  “Yeah? Okay then, so what makes Jack Cadney tick?”

  “Me? I dunno. I reckon I’d like to be a healer. I suppose it’s because my old Dad has been lame most of his life poor bugger, though I sometimes wish I could do something for a few of my people.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Ar, you know, to get a bit of drive and personal pride working in their guts. That’s what’s missing, Dan. And it’s not something that’ll come from any Government grant or education programme; it’s something each one has to get started for themselves.

  “There’s no ambition, see; no commitment to the future. And don’t say it’s because we’ve been robbed of our land or it’s lack of opportunity. Those are different issues and they’re not what I’m talking about. In fact lumping them all together just hides the real problem.

  “See, Danny, there’s a disconnect somewhere. How many old-time migrants have you read about that landed in Australia with two dollars fifty in their pockets – before there was a single cent of handout money?

  “They all found work and fed themselves, and before long a few of them even had their own businesses. Ten or twelve years later some of the buggers owned half the bloody town.

  “Well, plenty of my people have had only two dollars fifty in their pocket. So how come one of ‘em – somewhere – hasn’t run roughshod over all and sundry and finished up owning the whole station? And the two next to it as well?

  “Commitment to the future, Dan. That’s what’s needed. And some good old stick-to-it resolve.”

  “Bloody hell, mate; you’re a bit of a worry. You know that, don’t you.”

  Cadney glared at him. “That’s what my Dad used to say. So what’s your excuse?”

  “I’m just naturally rude and opinionated, I suppose,” Danny replied. “No, what I mean is, you’re a lot smarter than the average scrub turkey a bloke runs into out around the ridges, so how come you’re so sharp up the pointy end?”

  “Ar that’s my father’s fault, Dan. When I got to school age he took me off to the Santa Teresa Mission, see, south east of Alice. Dad insisted they take me into the Catholic boarding school there.

  “This came as a bit of a surprise to the MacDonald Downs Marauder, mate, I can tell you. I was pretty free spirited, see, like any right-minded bush kid. I’d just assumed we were going there for a holiday.

  “School? School?!! I didn’t want anything to do with School! When I told him I wouldn’t be staying he said, ‘No worries boy, but you’ll be getting your skinny black arse flogged three times a day until you do.’

  “One day when I got a bit bigger and thought I knew everything I decided to call his bluff. The Christmas Holidays had ended, see, and right or wrong this little black duck was Not Going Back.

  “Bloody hell, it only took a couple of his floggings to make me realise how desperately I wanted an education. Now of course it’s ‘What you sees is what youse gets’.”

  “Well bugger me. And the old feller comes across as such a pussycat. So how come Jack Cadney hasn’t run roughshod over everyone and take over the station?”

  “That’s because I never worked as a stockman like my Dad or learned anything about cattle. See, when I was a weiye the only thing I wanted was to have my own car. I couldn’t wait; day and night it was all I could think about.

  “After finishing school I went back to MacDonald Downs. Dad was head stockman there at the time. I wasn’t interested in jackerooing though. Instead I spent most of my time hanging around the station workshop. Eventually old Chalmers got sick of hunting me out of the place and gave me a job.

  “Chief sweeper-upper he made me. Said I should start earning my own tucker instead of eating my old man bare. He put me in charge of scraping and cleaning all the parts and everything, and cleaning up the rubbish.

  “Later he found a half wrecked Falcon with a cooked motor. He put it in the corner of the workshop and in my spare time I was allowed to pull it to pieces and fix it up – one part at a time.

  “He showed me everything I needed to know and made sure I did it properly. He made me work and pay for every last nut and bolt of the bloody thing, too.

  “That’s how I came to be a bush mechanic, see – you know, fixing cars or putting them together and selling them. —Hey! You don’t want to buy a good tray-back Toyota, do you? It’ll be ready as soon as I find an engine for it.”

  “HellO-o... It’s me, mate; Danny Papa. I already know three blokes that reckon you’ll be selling it to them. But what I’d really like you to tell me – old mate old pal old fellow alcoholic – is what exactly were we looking for back there. Like… What’s the real reason we’re out here?

  “You see my friend, ol’ Mad Dan the storeman might be a couple blowflies shy of a barbeque but he’s not completely blind. There has to be more to this little Sunday jaunt than jolly Jack Cadney has so far let on.

  “Sure you told me about getting the Nissan going but what about the driver, what happened to him? Did he just walk back out to the Highway and get a lift to Wyndham or what?”

  Cadney had to admit Dan was right, and that there was a lot more to the affair than just a four-be with a flat battery. He then told Danny in confidence about Raymond Sheldon and the fears held for his safety, then confessed about how he’d let himself get big-headed and overconfident about things.

  “I was certain we’d find tracks going off somewhere,” he said. “And when we foll
owed them I expected to find what had happened to Sheldon. But there was nothing.

  “See, Dan, it never pays to be too cocksure about things,” he sermonised. “Life just doesn’t work that way.”

  Yet deep in Cadney’s subconscious something was trying to make itself felt. He wasn’t aware of this as such; he just had a vague unsettled feeling and thought it was the result of being proven wrong.

  But where could he be wrong? Where was the flaw?

  This was unfamiliar territory to Jack Cadney and without knowing it he tried to bury his discomfort by turning the conversation elsewhere again.

  “Hey Dan!” he said brightly. “It’s Sunday. Why don’t we drive on to the Urandangie Pub and have a few beers in the bar. It’s only a couple hundred kilometres. We could be home again by ten o’clock.”

  Dan stood up and emptied the billycan on the ashes. “You could,” he said. “I’d have to keep going.”