McCullock's Gold

by Lindsay Johannsen

  Chapter 30. The Unannounced Visit; and The Shining Light

  A couple of weeks after these events Senior Constable Rick Frazier departed the Harts Range Police Station to conduct another routine road patrol eastward along the Plenty Highway.

  Usually he went straight through to the Queensland border, but this time he’d made an early start so he could detour in to the Bonya Community. He intended calling on Jack Cadney but in his haste to get away had forgotten to ring. Riding on the seat alongside him was a large cardboard carton.

  Hopefully Cadney would be at home. Failing that Angelica should be around somewhere and he could retrieve his tucker-box and car fridge.

  On reaching the Cadneys’ place Frazier drove in through the open gate, then stopped behind the yellow car and turned off the engine. There was no sign of the dwelling’s occupants.

  His fridge and tuckerbox were on the table. Cadney had put them there in case of being away should he happen to call in.

  Frazier took the carton then went to the door and knocked loudly. The fridge would be empty of course; Cadney wouldn’t have let the perishables go to waste. Doubtless everything edible in the tuckerbox would have been “borrowed” as well.

  No answer came, so he set the carton on the table and returned his belongings to the wagon. Back at the front door he knocked more loudly, after which he picked up the box and waited.

  Cadney was inside but was heavily asleep. The Holden’s clutch had given-out coming home late from yesterday’s hunting trip, mainly as a result of the flogging he’d given it in his efforts to evade Tyler and Watts.

  He’d been carrying tools and a spare clutch assembly but changing it over in the dark had been a long and difficult job. In addition to that, when he finally had the car moving again, he’d suffered two flat tyres, a puncture then a blowout. By the time he’d arrived home it was four in the morning.

  Frazier pounded loudly one more time, in frustration as much as anything. He was just about to walk away when Cadney wrenched open the door – all fuzzy-headed and angry and ready to abuse the person who’d woken him. On seeing Frazier he bit-off the abuse and glared daggers instead.

  The policeman greeted him cheerily. “I can’t stop for long,” he said. “I just knocked because I thought you might like to know: Raymond Sheldon turned out to be Les McCullock’s great-grandson.”

  Cadney didn’t comment. Instead he stepped onto the veranda and flopped into a chair.

  Frazier pulled another out from the table and sat down with the box on his knees. “A little while back an elderly great aunt of Sheldon’s passed away in an Adelaide nursing home,” he went on. “Apart from personal stuff the only thing still in her possession was an old steel trunk. It seems she wouldn’t part with it.

  “The great aunt was actually McCullock’s daughter. He’d left her the trunk after his death in Tennant Creek, and when she died the trunk went to Sheldon and his sister, they being the only remaining McCullock heirs.

  “I never saw it you understand, but according to what I’ve been told the trunk held a number of different items, including a leather folder. In the folder were some old letters and McCullock’s Miner’s Right. There was also some sort of sketch map – of the Jervois Ranges if my information is correct, drawn by McCullock presumably.

  “On it he’d made a few notes about different places in the area; on the back were some diagrams of the local mines and other information. —Supposedly. So I’ve been informed.

  “According to Sheldon’s sister, parts of the notes were in code and she and her brother had managed to decipher them. They were aware of their great-grandfather’s copper mining days at Jervois, and because of that and some other things they knew about him they were able to work out the key.

  “Hidden in the notes were directions and details as to where McCullock had apparently buried something. An ‘ironstone gourd’, he called it – whatever an ironstone gourd might be.

  “The notes also claimed that this so called gourd thing was supposed to be full of gold! … with a separate comment alleging where the gold was supposed to have come from.

  “—By all accounts. So I’ve been led to believe.”

  The light was hurting Cadney’s eyes. He leant slowly forward and rested his head on his arms. “Keep going,” he said. “I’m listening. The car broke down last night and I only got home an hour or so before daylight.”

  Frazier pretended not to notice. “We don’t know whether the great aunt ever opened the trunk or saw the map,” he went on brightly, “but if she did it would appear she said nothing about it.

  “I never saw it of course, but apparently Sheldon’s sister had circled one of the lines of writing in red biro and made a comment in the top margin as to why McCullock had used this so-called gourd thing. It seems he saw it as being more secure than canvas or leather bags, as those could both rot or be eaten by termites. He also believed an ironstone boulder was less likely to be noticed if accidentally exposed – whatever all that might imply. I mean none of it makes any sense to me.

  “Anyhow, Raymond Sheldon subsequently drove up from Adelaide with the idea of following the map and seeing if he could find the gold it alluded to. I never saw it of course so I couldn’t give an opinion, but according to Sheldon’s sister they actually expected the map to be worthless – like something McCullock might have done to amuse himself of a quiet Sunday afternoon. And judging from some of her comments this wouldn’t have been out of character. The old bugger wasn’t above putting a bit of bullshit about, apparently, especially where his prospecting activities and business affairs were concerned.

  “She also claimed her brother had been excited about the trip north, despite having doubts about the map. He’d never been to the Centre, she said, and was looking forward to seeing where his great grandfather had been mining. He also wanted to check out the country around some place called Marshall Bar.

  “And I was right about what happened at the Telstra pole. Sheldon was unlucky enough to run into Tyler and Watts there and told them about the map and old McCullock.

  “They thought this was heaven-sent, because what Sheldon had said more or less confirmed what they’d heard from Sayd Kaseem – to some extent anyway. And if they had the map… Well; that would give them two shots at the gold – if any of it actually existed, that is … which I very much doubt. All they had to do was get the map.

  “They’re both claiming the other killed Sheldon, of course. Both of ‘em are right handed, but the angle of the blow and the apparent strength behind it almost certainly indicates Tyler.

  “Anyway, after wrapping him in a plastic tarp they put him on the floor of the Toyota, behind the front seats. This was because of the Nissan’s open tray, they said. A body on the back might have been noticed.

  “They then headed east again to get rid of the evidence. That was when Tom Winters saw them drive past, when he was camped at the giant ant hill. A bit farther into Tarlton Downs they left the highway and went north into the spinifex country. They thought a car dumped in the desert there wouldn’t be found for years, but even so took the trouble to destroy its ID numbers.

  “But the idiots had no idea; where they left it was right under the Alice Springs to Mount Isa flight path. It was only a matter of time before someone in a light aircraft noticed it.

  “After dumping the Nissan they headed west again, their plan being to dispose of the body somewhere along the way. When they ran into that mob of cattle they decided that off the road in the bush there somewhere would be as good a place as any.

  “But they hung onto the blue tarp for some reason. They said they’d intended to wash off the blood at their Jervois campsite but later decided to burn it.

  “Anyway, from there they headed back to Alice Springs with their samples, still confident they’d been to the right place, despite having found no gold. Then later, when their assays came back stone-dead, the pricks went out to Sayd Kaseem’s place and beat the shit out of him.

 
“Both are claiming it was just to get more information, because at that point they hadn’t been able to decipher the map. More likely it was retribution, but it could easily have been both.

  “Shortly after that Tyler worked out some of the code, but from what he told us it only concerned the ironstone boulder. Apparently he missed the bit that Sheldon’s sister claims dealt with the gold’s origins.

  “But get this: Tyler is totally dead-set certain that any gold McCullock possessed will have come from the Attutra Mine!

  “He claims to be a geologist, see, and reckons that one of the items he researched at the Mines Department was the Jervois Range copper mineralisation – and in particular that of the Attutra Mine. Two important things Tyler reckons he learned there: first, that subsequent assays show all the Jervois deposits carry small amounts of gold – some more than others though none of it enough to mine for itself, he claims, but in his opinion a handy by-product for a current-day copper miner – and second, that McCullock had reported finding native silver in the Attutra’s orebody.

  “This is out-and-out proof of the gold’s origins as far as Tyler is concerned. McCullock’s gold came from right there at the Attutra, he says, in what he calls ‘the extreme supergene enrichment conditions under the creek’.

  “He’s also convinced that all Sayd Kaseem’s ‘down-in-the-desert’ stuff was just alcohol-driven bullshit. He reckons it’s a story McCullock got going, with young Sayd Kaseem being brainwashed into believing it in case he ever said anything.

  “Anyway, the next thing Tyler and Watts did was to head back to Jervois, to see if they could find this alleged ironstone rock thing and its supposed gold. That’s what they were doing when I ran into them at Great Northern – after you and I saw them from the top of Reward hill.

  “But that’s not all. I mean you wouldn’t bloody believe it!

  Amongst the stuff in the back of their Cruiser were a couple of twenty-five litre steel drums. —You know, like those flour buckets with the clamp-on lids.

  “No one paid them much attention, but eventually some idiot opened ‘em up and had a look inside. The bloody things were three quarters full of some sort of yellow powder, much like that coloured oxide stuff they use for pigmenting cement.

  A couple of the workshop blokes were showing bits of it around and others were crumbling lumps between their fingers and trying to work out what it could be. Then someone had the bright idea of ringing Remand and having them ask Tyler.

  “‘Oh,’ says Tyler. ‘That’s yellowcake.’

  “Sheeeee-IT! Didn’t that put a cat in the cocky’s cage! The police workshops were cleared, coppers were stripping off and fighting to get into the showers, the Brass were screaming for radiation detectors and trying to organise decontamination...

  “And then the Feds got onto it. I mean bloody hell, you just don’t want to know. And I never saw it, but in the middle of this general meltdown this so-called map thing of McCullock’s somehow disappeared.

  “Nobody noticed at the time, but later there was a terrible ruckus and threats of an investigation. No one seemed to know what had happened to it though. Probably some thieving idiot thought it was a good chance to make himself rich. Luckily the map wasn’t dead-set crucial to the case, because apparently no one had thought to photocopy the stupid thing.”

  Cadney sat up and glared at the policeman. A map, he thought bitterly. Stolen. That was just great. It meant the whole bloody Appoota Mbulkara business could start all over again. He lay forward with his head on his arms, this time mostly in exasperation. It was enough to make a man cry.

  Frazier shifted the box from his lap to the table, then sat back and continued his summary. “Anyhow, once things had settled down to an ordinary riot the Feds got Tyler and Watts into interview rooms and started asking them a few seriously serious questions.

  “Neither of ‘em could understand what all the fuss was about. It was just yellowcake. They’d found it in a piece of machinery they’d bought from a bloke in Mt Isa a couple of years back. A big steel drum-fan or something they said it was, from a concentrating plant.

  “The Mount Isa bloke was a second-hand machinery dealer who called himself Square-deal Neil. He’d got the drum fan years before along with a whole heap of other stuff at the auction they held after the Mary Kathleen uranium mine closed down. Everything was supposed to have been cleaned up, but in those days decontamination wasn’t much of an issue and yellowcake was pretty ho-hum.

  “A couple of months ago Tyler decided to get this drum fan going, and when they opened it up to replace the bearings they found all this yellow powdery stuff caked everywhere inside it.

  “He realised straight away what it had to be and a hastily borrowed radiation detector soon confirmed it. He then came to the decision that it would only be fair and equitable to allow the broader masses an opportunity of sharing in this wondrous good fortune.

  “The plan was simple. All they needed was a remote location with the right sort of geology. The Jervois Ranges seemed a likely place for a good looking rock formation, and the northern half was clear of Exploration Licences. On the second trip out there they looked the place over; back in Alice Springs they lodged an application for the area.

  “Their intention was to ‘salt’ an outcrop there somewhere, one carefully selected for the job, the idea being to spoon-out the yellowcake powder along its length after the Exploration Licence had been granted. Some time later, when rain had washed the evidence into the rocks, an announcement would be made of their amazing uranium ‘discovery’ and its staggering potential.

  It would be far too big for their little outfit to handle, of course. Such a project would need a major exploration effort, and to finance it properly a Company would have to be floated.

  “But this sort of thing is not as easy as you’d think, because making the whole business look legitimate takes a good deal of work. Everything has to stand up to scrutiny, both in the paperwork and out in the field. And as it rolls along it all has to be kept shipshape.

  “Anyway, once the smoke-and-mirrors stuff is set up and everything is going along nicely, the vendors, now the Company executives – in this instance Simon Tyler and Alex Watts plus their wives and a couple of mates… Well, they just help themselves. —You know, top of the range company cars, important overseas so-called business trips with first class travel and accommodation, super you-beaut salaries and generous cash bonuses…

  “And there’s no end to it. I mean once you’ve got your snout in the trough you just take as much as you can.

  “They’ve done this before, those two, but not by their real names. Robins and Bond they called themselves last time. They were the ones behind that bodgie emerald-mine float in the Harts Ranges nineteen or twenty years back. Course that sort of thing is a lot harder now, with the all the proof of identity stuff and the improved company regulations.

  But that show wasn’t salted. They were actually on to something. None of their stuff was much good, though, from what I heard. Later I read how low grade emerald can be given some sort of secret high pressure heat treatment to improve its quality, and I thought, ‘So that’s what the buggers were up to.’

  “Course I bet the shareholders never got to hear about it. That sort of information they’d have kept to themselves.”

  When the word “emerald” eventually filtered through the fog of Cadney’s sleep-deprived brain he jerked upright. “Was that them?!!” he spat. “My old auntie found those emeralds.

  “Her husband Anzac showed one to a rip-off merchant in Alice Springs who used to buy crystals and gemstones from the Harts Range people. He told old Anzac it was nothing but pretty coloured rubbish and gave him fifty bucks and a couple cartons of VB to see where it came from.

  “Him and Tyler must have been mates, because the next thing is the shonky prick’s driving around in a flash new Toyota Land Cruiser, there’s a fence around the place with Keep Out signs everywhere and a couple of rifle-toting whitefellas have se
t up camp to make sure no one gets within a mile of the place.

  “My auntie and old Anzac got a bag of flour, a couple tins of tobacco and the promise of a car if the show turned out to be any good. They were then kept supplied with enough grog to keep them out of the way until it was cleaned out.

  “Altogether they got more for the five little stones they’d found earlier in a gully trap than what those crooks ever paid them.”

  Frazier shifted in his chair. “Yeah, but like I said, most of the stuff there wasn’t much good anyway, so at least they got something. Course if any half-decent gems had come out of it I know where they’d have gone: straight into Tyler and Watts’ pockets.”

  “Yeah. And the mongrels were there for nearly three years running their rip-off, with one or two of ‘em always hanging around to make sure nobody got near the place.”

  “That’s right. Then one day it was found deserted. They were gone; the company had folded. The principals got most of the money plus anything saleable that came out of it and the shareholders got shafted to the tune of ten-mil.

  “Mining the investors, see; that’s what they were doing. Just like they were planning to do with the yellowcake.

  “The Jervois Ranges suited them perfectly, too. A couple of exploration companies have already drilled there looking for uranium, something a potential investor would have found highly reassuring.

  “That’s what brought those two up here in the first place, see. The gold business was just an opportunity that bobbed up in front of them.

  “Course for my money the pricks should have stayed with the shonky mining company stuff. Instead of copping a fine or doing a stretch tending cabbages somewhere the idiots are now up for the high jump.”

  Cadney couldn’t believe it. “And you came all this way just to wake me up and tell me those two murdering bastards are a pair of bloody crooks? I could have told you that Day bloody One!”

  Frazier ignored him. “Oh yeah. And the body the drillers found? It’s believed to be that of Les McCullock’s partner, Wilbur Johns – the miner that disappeared in the late nineteen-forties. He was murdered all right but we’ll never know who by.

  “Probably it was McCullock. They had a good look at him at the time but found nothing incriminating. Presumably they didn’t know about the gold.”

  Cadney slumped back in his chair and scowled at the horizon. If that was the general opinion then at least some good had come from the affair. It meant his father would remain totally off the radar for Johns’ death – not that there was anything to actually link him with it anyway. It was just reassuring to know there was nothing which might lead someone to connect one with the other somehow, at some time in the future.

  “And while I’m here,” Frazier added, “– seeing as I had to come in for my car fridge and tucker box – I thought I might as well present you with this.” He slid the carton across to where it interrupted Cadney’s line of sight.

  Cadney turned and glared at him angrily. “What is it?” he demanded.

  “It’s a box, you dickhead. Open the bloody thing and find out.”

  It wasn’t sealed. Cadney sat forward again and tentatively lifted the flaps. Inside was an object of some sort, packed in wads of scrunchled-up newspaper. He removed some of the packing then lifted the item out and placed it on the table.

  Frazier watched him closely, enjoying the moment immensely. And all Jack Cadney could do was sit there and stare at the thing in bewilderment.

  Fifty centimetres high it stood, on a flat metal base – a roughly welded, crudely shaped figure made from small metal scraps and off-cuts. Some of the really bad welding dags had been ground off. Most were still there.

  The whole creation had been sprayed with cheap gold paint – rust, dirt, welding slag and all. The paint had run and some of the thicker gobs were still gooey. Aloft, in a supposed hand at the end of an alleged arm, the figure held a half-sized light bulb, the only thing not “gilded”.

  “The other two judges couldn’t be here as they are currently inconvenienced,” Frazier explained, “but I’m sure the decision would have been unanimous.”

  “What are you bloody talkin’ about?” demanded Cadney in exasperation.

  “Mate, can’t you see? It’s a Gold bloody Logie. It’s for the best impromptu scared-shitless scene in recorded history that never got to be filmed!”

  Cadney just stared at him. Frazier took a flaccid right hand from the table and shook hand, arm and Jack Cadney with two-handed vigour. “Gawd mate! Bugger me! Congratulations!” he said heartily. “You were just totally absolutely awesome!”

  On retrieving his hand Cadney picked up the figure and looked it over. Frazier stumbled off toward the police wagon in hysterics, his tears-in-the-eyes hilarity continuing all the way there. “I’d keep up the welding lessons, Leonardo,” Cadney shouted after him. “—Hey! What’s with the globe?”

  The policeman opened the driver’s door. “It’s for being such a shining light you mad bastard,” he shouted back. He slid in behind the wheel. “And get that broken tail light glass fixed or I’ll bloody do you.”

  Cadney could still hear his laughter as the police wagon turned into the next street.

  After contemplating all this for a time Jack Cadney stood up and went inside to make some coffee. Later he came out again, to clear away the rubbish before Angelica came home.

  He’d keep the carton, of course. It was good heavy-duty cardboard and just right for storing car parts. He wasn’t so sure about the “Logie” thing though. Perhaps he should hang onto that as well, even if just to foist back onto Frazier.

  YES! That was it! And preferably in a way that would embarrass the bugger in front of his colleagues, like at an official presentation ceremony or something. …Some Brass from Darwin, a few speeches…

  Absolutely perfect.

  Bandervaal and Grace would be the key, of course. He’d hide it from Angelica amongst his spare parts for the time being and wait for the right opportunity.

  With that happy thought Jack Cadney gathered up the newspaper packing on the table and stuffed it into a plastic shopping bag, ready for the incinerator. Two pieces from the floor were added-in then he tied it off, after which he started filling a fresh bag with paper from the carton.

  At the very bottom of the box, beneath the last of the packing, he came on a newish A4 envelope, all brown and anonymous looking. Curious, Cadney lifted it out.

  The envelope was unmarked and unsealed; in it was a clear plastic sheath. He slipped in his fingers and pulled out the sheath part way.

  Inside that was some paper – a single page, old and yellowing. On it were age-faded diagrams … and, in the top margin, a line of small neat printing.

  In red biro.

  There was something else.

  He withdrew the sheath and tipped up the envelope. Out fell some matches taped to a note.

  Cadney picked up the note. “Use them you wanker,” it said in big marking-pen letters.

  And beneath that, all underlined and with multiple exclamation marks, were the words:

  “THIS IS NO BLOODY JOKE!!!”

  * * *

  Epilogue

  The day was overcast. A weather front was sweeping misty showers across the landscape.

  In the desert country south of Marshall Bar a strange-looking yellow car could be seen bounding through the spinifex, kilometres from any road or track. In the car was a man in his mid-thirties and a much older man, the first man’s father.

  The older man was lame in one leg and his eyesight was poor, yet the directions he gave the younger man from time to time were firm and confident. Mostly they travelled in silence but after a while the older man began singing to himself, quietly at first in the grey morning light but more loudly as time passed. Occasionally he’d interrupt his singing to cough a little or to issue further instructions.

  Eventually they began to approach a small rocky hill, one of a widely scattered few outcropping the sand of that
trackless place. Each comprised a reef of broken brown-stained quartz on a wind eroded knoll, all deeply weathered relics from a distant age.

  Yet this hill was different; it hosted two reefs. Parallel they stood, more alike than twins and whiter than ice. And as the car drew nearer the old man’s voice began to quaver and his eyes to fill with tears. Not tears of distress or of pain, but tears of thankfulness, fulfilment … and peace of mind.

  Long awaited peace of mind.

  And later that day the car departed the spinifex country and returned to its tracks and roadways. And behind it came rain, cleansing the desert’s spirit and refreshing its life.

  ##########

  (A little about the author – but not much)

  Linz Johannsen (1939 – ). Born, raised and schooled in Alice Springs, NT, Australia.

  The born and raised business went really well, too, from what I recall, though being somewhat free-spirited I found the school part pretty much of an imposition. But I have to apologise here, see, because I’ve deleted what followed.

  In fact what I did was smarten it up a bit and then publish it as a separate story (also free), under the title, “Tales From The Acacia Trees”. So, please, cruise across to there and check it out.