McCullock's Gold

by Lindsay Johannsen

  Chapter 28. Getting The Wood On The Plastic Glass; and Holmes’ Postulation

  As Cadney was seeing Dan out the gate his phone rang, so he quickly returned to the house. It was Rick Frazier, calling to say he’d received information about the fragments of clear plastic.

  “They’re from the front parking light of an Eighty or One Hundred Series Toyota Station Wagon, similar to the one Tyler and Watts are driving,” the policeman told him. “I’ll need to talk to them of course, but are they still in the Jervois area?”

  “I saw ‘em this morning when I was out hunting so I reckon they would be,” Cadney replied, “– unless they’ve cleared out in the last few hours. I didn’t notice if they had any broken glass, though.” No mention was made of the ironstone gourd, the shots fired at him, the ensuing chase or his suicidal escape.

  “Good,” said Frazier. “I’ll be there in a couple of hours so don’t go discussing the matter with anyone. —Hey! And don’t go pissing off looking for a kangaroo, either. I want to get this Sheldon business sorted.”

  Cadney was unbolting the Holden’s wrecked left hand mudguard when the policeman drove in, sitting on the ground with his legs under the front wheel arch. He’d blocked-up the car’s passenger’s side with a log and a large flat rock, then removed the wheel to give himself more working room.

  The damaged front panel and bonnet were on the ground nearby, while replacements from his spare parts collection were in the shade on the veranda. Cadney checked to confirm it was Frazier then went back to wrestling with the spanner.

  Frazier alighted and closed the door, then walked around the car inspecting the damage. On coming to where Cadney was sitting he knelt down and asked what had happened.

  Cadney continued working. He’d hit a couple of trees while chasing a kangaroo, he said.

  “And driving backwards, too, by all appearances. Makes it more interesting, does it?”

  “Nah, that happened earlier. A couple young fellas from Eaglebeak were pulling up behind me in an old Toyota and forgot they had no brakes.”

  “And by ‘hunting’ you actually mean ‘trashing the major flora’,” Frazier mocked. “So why don’t you watch where you’re going?”

  “What, and miss seeing the kangaroos? I wouldn’t get anything that way. —Hey; make yourself useful. Pull the front end of the mudguard out a bit and take the weight. These last couple of bolts are a bugger to get by myself. That way I’ll be with you a bit quicker.”

  “You seem to be doing all right so far,” Frazier replied. He took hold of the mudguard as requested then began explaining how Sheldon was killed.

  “Forensics says he took a single blow to the head from behind. His assailant used a heavy bar or tyre lever, apparently, and not just to knock him out. They also confirmed that he wasn’t killed where we found him. The question is, who done the deed?

  “Tom Winters’ statement and the tracks you saw at the Telstra Pole certainly put Simon Tyler and Alex Watts’ names on the board, but if they were the ones that killed him then what could have been their motive? Not stealing his Nissan, that’s for sure. And his wallet and credit cards were still in his pocket so it couldn’t have been robbery.

  “Whatever the case, the sooner we get onto those two buggers the better. If they realise we’re looking for ‘em they’ll probably shoot through.

  “But how best to do it? A road block on the highway would be no good because we’d have to have two – one to cover the Queensland side as well.”

  “Yeah, and if they got wind of what we were doing they could still get away,” Cadney replied. “Up the road to Lucy Creek Station, bore-tracks north to the Sandover Highway…

  “Too easy. And from there they could go anywhere.”

  “Okay. So what are our chances of tracking them down? …assuming they’re still around here somewhere, that is.”

  Cadney was sure they would be. They’d not give up on the gold that easily. He said nothing about this to Frazier of course.

  “Hang on, Fraz…” he muttered. When the bolt he was working on came free he put it in the empty fruit tin with the others and looked back at the policeman. “They’ll be here for a while, I reckon. The buggers were really on a mission when I saw ‘em driving around this morning so they’ll be about the place somewhere.

  “Finding them could be a problem, though. They’ve been leaving tracks all over the place so which set do we follow? I mean we could waste a lot of time just finding the right ones.”

  Then Cadney remembered the bush track he’d seen near the ranges north of the mines. “Wait up…” he added. “I reckon I know where the pricks might be camping. A couple days back I was out hunting and came across someone’s campsite, behind some granite hills. The tracks there were just standard four-be’s and could have been made by anybody, but I’ll bet it was them.”

  He turned back to remove the last bolt. “I’d doubt it we’d find ‘em there just now, Fraz; they’ll be out doing whatever it is they’re doing. We could check though, and if it looks like they’re still around we could park off in the bush somewhere and wait for them to come back.”

  “Perfect,” said Frazier. “We can go as soon as you like.

  —Now in the meantime… While I’m like – you know, waiting – I don’t suppose you might care to explain how your car seems to have acquired a nice fresh bullet hole straight up its arse?

  “No particular reason you understand. Just casual interest.”

  Cadney suddenly felt ill. He’d only forgotten about the stupid thing. And it was too late to deny knowledge of it now; Frazier knew him too well. “Bugger me,” he finally croaked, “A man must be going bloody senile. Gawd, I wish you hadn’t seen it.”

  “Yeah? So come on Captain Invincible, let’s see what sort of a bullshit yarn you can come up with, eh? …so we can all have a good laugh. Then you can tell me what has really been going on here.”

  Cadney’s mind raced. He’d dropped the rifle, of course; simple as that. …Nah. Frazier wouldn’t wear his first story whatever it was. ―Too much happening; too many odd things. He’d be dead sus.

  Maybe if he explained about Tyler and Watts, and how the boulder in the trench was Secret Aboriginal Business...

  No better: so why then would they be shooting at him? Claiming Watts was just trigger happy wouldn’t work. And Frazier was waiting for an answer. ―But even revealing the ironstone’s contents wouldn’t be good enough. In fact telling him that would only get the bugger really wound up.

  The problem was that every aspect of the business was linked to something else, and with Frazier there were no half measures. Reveal the gold and he’d want to know its origins, then on and on it would go, until every last detail of the affair had been winkled out – McCullock, the ironstone boulder, how it came to be in the trench, the gold’s Aboriginal significance, his father’s part – right through to its recovery and his escape from Tyler and Watts.

  He would then have to justify his earlier silence, which would mean explaining his father’s concerns about secrecy. This would reveal the old fellow’s tribal responsibility, which in turn would lay bare Appoota Mbulkara’s special spiritual nature and its ceremonial importance – along with its general location.

  So this was it then; he was cornered. There was no option but to tell Frazier everything – in the utmost confidence, of course. He would have to be careful, though, and say nothing which might connect his father with Johns in any way, in case it should lead somehow to Twofoot being linked with the miner’s disappearance.

  His father’s presence at the Attutra would have to be mentioned, of course, but only in the context of his secret observations. How else could Jack Cadney have learned of the ironstone’s whereabouts? And Johns’ actions that night were not critical. His part could be left out; there’d be no unexplained gap in the story.

  “Hang on, Fraz,” he muttered. “I’ll be with you in a sec. This is the last bolt.” When it surrendered Frazier took the mudguard away and to
ssed it with the other damaged panels.

  Cadney stood up and dusted off his trousers. “You’d better come and sit on the veranda,” he said resignedly. “This is going to take some time.”

  Once they were settled Cadney took the policeman through the whole affair, explaining each episode as clearly and concisely as he could. Wilbur Johns was described as “McCullock’s long term business partner”, and that he’d disappeared one night sometime after they’d returned from Marshall Bar with the gold. On finishing he took Frazier to the car and showed him the ironstone gourd.

  “—And I have to tell you, Fraz,” he added, slamming the door in frustration. “Never in my life did I imagine myself telling a white man about Appoota Mbulkara. I do not feel good about it and I wish I hadn’t had to but I had no choice.

  See I thought I could get the gold back without anyone being the wiser, even after realising Tyler and Watts were onto it. You buggered that, though, when you spotted that bloody bullet hole.”

  They walked back to the veranda and resumed their chairs. “And please don’t underrate what I’ve told you.” Cadney added. “This is really serious Business and strictly between you and me. Any ‘How I Discovered The Lost Gold Of Appoota Mbulkara’ books hitting the shops after the Police throw you out of the service and Jackson Cadney is history, mate; end of story. The old fellas would see to that, most likely with my father urging them on.”

  “Bugger Appoota Mbulkara,” replied Frazier. “You’re looking at the next Police Commissioner here. I’ve already sent in my Weet-Bix coupons.” He then went on to reassure Cadney that if the gold truly was Aboriginal Business, as he claimed, then he could shove it. “I want nothing to do with it,” he added, “or any of your Secret Aboriginal Business stuff for that matter. All that is strictly your own affair.

  “But lemme tell you this, my son: don’t ever let me catch you lairising around the place in some big new top-of-the-range V8 Toyota Land Cruiser, because, if I do, your arse will land in the slammer so bloody fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  “You won’t Fraz. I’m not talking bullshit here. This is fair dinkum Old Fellas’ Business and messing with it is bloody scary.”

  “Fair enough. Then as far I’m concerned that dungy brown rock you’ve got in your car there is just another worthless lump of ironstone. Gold inside that? —Come on Spiderman, time to lay off the turps a bit. I mean the whole bloody notion is just too ridiculous for words. In fact I’ve forgotten about it already.”

  “Umm… Fraz, old mate old pal. Like … just as a matter of interest, what would the charge be exactly?”

  “Don’t you worry, I’d think of something. Not cutting me in, for a start.” Frazier then asked if Cadney knew an old alky pensioner by the name of Sayd Kaseem.

  “I know of him and I’ve seen him in town occasionally, but that’s all,” Cadney replied. “My Dad’s known him forever though, since the early days at Jervois.

  “His mother came from the Arkarnina country. She died when he was little. Then a horse killed his father when he was ten and Les McCullock took him under his wing. He turned out to be one of the best horse tailers ‘round the ridges, Dad reckoned. Why?”

  “The poor bugger was found dead three days ago in the bush north of town, not far from his camp. Somebody’d beaten the shit out of him and left him there to die.

  “Janine Grace said that for a week or so the daytime temps in Alice had been around the forty-two degree mark, and with Kaseem being pretty dehydrated from the grog it looked like he’d never regained consciousness.

  “Subsequent enquiries revealed that just prior to his going missing two men had been looking for him. The descriptions given of them and their vehicle matched those of Tyler and Watts and the Toyota they were driving.

  “The only thing I can think of is that they somehow got wind of what Kaseem knew, then went out to his shack to beat the information out of him.”

  “Yeah, but it couldn’t have been information to do with the gold at Appoota Mbulkara, because what you’ve just said must have happened after Tyler and Watts took me out there. And it certainly doesn’t explain how they knew about the gold in the ironstone gourd and exactly where it was buried.

  “You see, Fraz, according to Dad, young Sayd lived the life of a whitefella after McCullock took him on. And when he went to Appoota Mbulkara with McCullock he knew nothing about its Aboriginal significance. He only learned about that later, when he was initiated there, and after the initiation business he wouldn’t have mentioned the place to anybody, even at gunpoint.

  “Besides, if Sayd had ever blabbed-off about the gold there, then people would have been driving all over the place looking for it. But nobody ever has.”

  “Except for Tyler and Watts.”

  “Well, yeah. Except for Tyler and Watts.”

  “So how do you reckon they got onto it?”

  Cadney frowned. “You’ve got me there, Fraz...” His voice trailed off as he watched a car drive across the front grid into the Community. When it stopped in front of the store he turned back to Frazier. “What about this,” he said. “Dad told me ages back that Sayd was in Alice Springs on the grog, and from what you told me a moment ago Tyler and Watts were looking for him by name – as if they already knew him. Perhaps they’d run into him earlier somewhere, hanging around the pubs desperate for a drink. He was always cadging from someone, Dad said.

  “Maybe he let on that he knew something – you know, so they’d shout him a couple of beers. Maybe Tyler and Watts got just enough out of him to make a trip to Appoota Mbulkara seem worthwhile.

  “See they only knew two things when they took me out there as a guide. One, the place they were looking for was in the desert country south of Marshall Bar somewhere and, Two, it was one of our secret places. And when they didn’t find any gold there they took chip samples and soil samples then sent them off for assaying.

  “But like I explained, I switched the buggers. So maybe they went out to see him again when the results came back dead. Perhaps they tried to get more info out of him and went too far, then left the poor bugger to die.

  “As for their knowing about the ironstone gourd and the gold in it, well that’s a different problem altogether...”

  Cadney was thoughtful for a moment. “See Sayd Kaseem couldn’t have told them about that, because according to Dad he didn’t know McCullock had used it for the gold – let alone where he’d buried it. He might have noticed the ironstone was missing but to cover that McCullock could have told him anything.”

  Frazier agreed this was plausible and also that it would be interesting to establish how Tyler and Watts had learned of the ironstone and its contents.

  “We’ll get some answers once we get hold of the pricks,” he added. “And if we can confirm those glass fragments came from their Cruiser then they’re right in the rabbit pie for Sheldon’s murder. Our problem, though, is what possible motive could they’ve had for killing him?

  “—Hey, and speaking of rabbits, what does that cow horn have to do with anything?”

  “I told you before, Fraz, it was the cow horn that broke the parking light – just like when we ran into that mob of cattle at the ghost gums. It might even have been the same mob.

  “One of the younger ones got whacked in the head. The horn most likely came off when it smashed the light.”

  Frazier thought it over for a few moments. “So why didn’t you tell me this before? You just gave me the horn and the bits of glass then muttered something about events repeating themselves. I worked out the glass okay, but the horn business lost me.”

  “Sorry. I thought you’d see straight away after what happened to us there with the cattle. The only difference was, your wagon has a bull bar and theirs doesn’t.”

  “Hey. I’m just a dumb bush copper, y’know, not Dick bloody Tracy.”

  “—Who the hell is Dick Tracy?” When no answer came Cadney continued. “Anyway, Tyler and Watts reckoned they were going to be clever. Besides
trying to stop us identifying the Nissan by scraping off the rego and chiselling up the ID numbers, they tried to hide Sheldon’s body by disposing of it in a totally different location.”

  The policeman looked at Cadney intently as he mulled this through. “So … what you’re saying is… When they collided with the bullock they must have decided that off in the bush there somewhere was as good a place as any to bury his corpse.”

  “Exactly. But it was on their return, see, after they’d ditched the Nissan. We know this because only one vehicle went in to where they buried him. I mean, no one would be stupid enough to leave their car parked on the roadside while they went off in another to get rid of a body, would they?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” muttered Frazier. “So ten or twelve days after dumping the Nissan and disposing of Sheldon’s body we’ve got Tyler and Watts back in Alice Springs beating up Sayd Kaseem. But why would it have taken so long for them to go out and see him?”

  “They’d have been waiting for my bodgied-up sample assays to come back, most likely. And they’d have been expecting some decent geo-chem numbers, too, even though they didn’t find any actual gold there, so when the results came back zero they would not have been happy.”

  The policeman sat up and stretched. “Fair enough. But how is it that three days later they’re at the Jervois mines looking for that stupid brown rock and pretending to be company geologists.”

  “I dunno, Fraz. You’ve got me there.”

  “Well okay then, let’s have another look at what we’ve got. Maskell’s information has Sheldon heading out this way about the same time as Tyler and Watts’ first trip. What if they bumped into him at the Telstra pole as they were heading back to Alice from Appoota Mbulkara.”

  “Hey yeah! That’s reasonable. And it certainly fits with the tracks. It fits in with the blood Angelica found on the stone, too.”

  “And you really think there was blood on that stone?”

  “Course there was blood. Come on, Fraz. I’m half working meself to death here winkling out these amazing bits of evidence and as far as you’re concerned it’s all just bullshit.”

  “Yeah, ‘half working’ sounds about right. —But we haven’t heard back from forensics yet, so our best lead just now is what you two saw at the Telstra pole.”

  “Well, Angelica reckoned two or three of ‘em were walking about there. I couldn’t see any boot marks but I could see where the four-be’s turned around. It’s their front wheels, Fraz; they always scuff a bit when they turn sharp.

  “The Nissan’s tracks were clear enough at the edge of the highway, though. It came from the west and went out to the east, as you’d expect, but the other four-be left the way it had come: eastward, behind the Nissan.

  “This all ties with what Tom Winters saw at the giant ant hill, too: a tray-back Nissan and two white Toyotas, one close behind it. Then a white Toyota coming back.”

  “Yeah. But it doesn’t explain why Tyler and Watts should want Sheldon dead. I mean, why kill him?”

  Cadney had to agree. “Or how they got onto the gold,” he added. “See that’s the part I don’t understand. The buggers knew exactly what they were looking for and precisely where they’d find it.”

  “Forget about the ironstone,” Frazier muttered. “It just complicates things. The important thing is that we have a fair handle on what must have happened to Sheldon. Rounding up the mongrels and asking some questions will fill in the rest.”

  “No, hold on, Fraz. See it’s at the Telstra pole we lose the thread. I mean up to that point we’re pretty right; we’ve got the tracks there, we’ve got Winters’ sighting the Nissan and Tyler and Watts’ Toyota and we’ve got the tracks leading to the body. But what ties them all together?”

  “Well, overall it’s the gold of course, because it has to be about the gold. What we need though is some sort of reason for topping Sheldon and a source of knowledge about your stupid brown rock.

  “So all right then, let’s assume something else took place at the pole, something significant enough to warrant a murder and something linking the whole lot together...” The policeman fell silent and leant back in his chair to think his idea through.

  Cadney took this as an opportunity to explain how all rocks were stupid. It was their nature, he said as he prattled on. Their colour didn’t matter. Frazier tried for a time to ignore the distraction then suddenly silenced his companion with a glare. After reflecting for a while longer he sat forward again.

  “Try this for size,” he said. “Tyler and Watts are on their way back to Alice Springs. They’ve been down into the spinifex country and found nothing, so they’ve given their useless guide the boot and left him to walk home. At the Telstra pole they pull in for a break and there they happen to meet up with Raymond Sheldon.

  “Let’s say Sheldon had some information about the gourd, like its whereabouts and what it contained, and let’s say Tyler and Watts got wind of it or got hold of the information itself – don’t ask me what or how; I mean I can’t begin to imagine the answer. Maybe those two decided on getting the gold for themselves but knew they’d first have to get rid of Sheldon. That would explain the knowledge and provide a motive.”

  Cadney thought this over. “Well it certainly hangs together,” he observed eventually, “even if it is a bit ‘suppose this and suppose that’. I can’t find any holes in it though, and I can’t think of anything else that would even begin to make sense.”

  “Yeah. It’s a bit like what Sherlock Holmes said – or don’t you know about him either.”

  Cadney looked at the policeman and grinned. “What, you mean like: ‘Elementary, my dear What’s name’?”

  “No, I mean like, ‘When you’ve eliminated everything else, whatever insanity remains must be the answer.’”

  “Are you sure that’s what he said?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I know what I mean.”

  “And that’s the important thing, I suppose. —So, Mister Police Commissioner In Waiting, this would call for a coldie wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yeah. The trouble is I’m on duty so how about boiling the billy. I’ve got some sandwiches in the wagon and I’m bloody starving.”