CHAPTER 26
Solomon’s Gems; And The Regular Customer
In the morning I was awoken by noises around the camp and the smell of bacon and eggs cooking. Zack’s father and Peter were already sitting at the table enjoying a mug of coffee and were talking quietly as they waited for their breakfast to arrive.
“Come on you ratbags, git outa them swags,” Nugget said, pulling on Zack’s foot as he walked past our beds. “If y’se wants a look down the mine y’se better git bloody movin’. Course y’ could lie there till lunch time for all I care, ony don’t come crawlin’ to me for no tucker when y’ guts starts gnawin’ at your gizzards ... an’ knowin’ you pair of gluttons that’ll be in about ten minutes.”
Ten minutes? I could feel it starting already. Zack too, by the look of things. He’d already disappeared down the path to the dunny.
After breakfast we walked up to the shaft with the men. There they began preparing for the day’s work; Nugget checked the oil and water in the engine driving the winch and fan then topped up its fuel tank, Jasper inspected the winder itself and greased its bearings and Peter attended to the carbide lamps we’d be taking down the mine. By the time he’d finished the others were ready and the winch engine was running.
Zack and I were then told to climb into the kebble, following which Peter passed us the lamps. He then stepped up onto its rim and wrapped one arm around the cable. This left his other hand free – necessary to prevent the bucket from spinning as we descended, he explained.
When we were set Nugget hoisted us about a metre clear of the ground. He then opened the shaft-cover and lowered us carefully into the mine.
This was a far cry from our Journey To The Centre Of The Earth as experienced in the man-cage at Mount Isa Mines. Steadily, steadily we descended until coming gently to rest on the shaft’s floor. The cable stopped paying-out as well and I asked Peter how this was achieved. He told me there was a marker on the winch cable that indicated to Nugget our reaching the bottom.
In reality the bottom of the shaft was actually a pit, with the floor of the access drive and its tram rails being a metre or so above it. This setup was deliberate, too; it allowed the loaded skip-truck to be tipped straight into the kebble.
Peter stepped up onto the tracks, then hauled first Zack then me and I up by the hand. There he lit and adjusted a lamp each for us then led us off into the darkness. To me the tunnel seemed far too narrow for a skip truck, though as Peter explained, narrowness wasn’t an issue provided the skip could go through. Making it wider would be wasted effort.
Just then we came on the skip truck. In it were picks and shovels for bogging-out the rock brought down by the firing. Whenever they were blasting they left it in the access drive, at a slightly wider place where there was room to squeeze past.
A few metres beyond there we came to a T-junction, developed where the drive intersected the ore zone geology. Peter led us into the right hand branch where the mine widened out somewhat. Soon we were walking on a floor that was strewn with rocks, thrown down by the force of the blasting.
There wasn’t much to see; everything was covered by a pall of grey dust – so thick that even were the place carpeted with King Solomon’s gems they’d have remained unnoticed. Then Peter started turning rocks over to see what the blasting had brought down and the freshly broken material’s true nature was revealed.
Solomon’s Gems indeed; I had never seen anything like it. Even in the lamp light the copper ore’s colours were simply astonishing. All the colours of the rainbow they were and alive with an iridescence so brilliant that even his finest peacocks would have seemed drab alongside it.
That was the nature of this particular mineral, Peter told me. “Bornite” he called it. He then explained how the ore formation comprised a one metre wide reef of white quartz breccia in the country rock, and how bornite was its predominant matrix mineral – something which was evident both above us in the roof and on the workface.
Zack had been turning rocks as well. “Hey Casey!” he suddenly shouted. “Have a look at this!” He was breaking pieces from a shattered rock of almost pure copper ore – the most superbly coloured specimens I have ever seen. Peter invited me to take some.
“Gees, it’ll look fantastic in the sunlight,” I said as I began filling my pockets.
Then Zack’s father arrived and started turning over rocks as well. “I hate to tell you this,” he said, “but up in the open air the bornite fades. Not straight away, of course, but in a year or so its colours will have lost their brilliance.”
Just then Peter disappeared back into the access tunnel. Then a loud rumbling sound came and he reappeared pushing the skip. “Righto you pair,” he said above the noise of the empty trolley, “You can stop plundering all our best stuff and get y’selves back up top. We gotta get started here or we’ll never get a load out.”
Jasper escorted us back to the shaft and watched as we climbed down into the kebble. “You’ll be right by y’selves,” he said as he pulled the wire on the clanger. “Hang on to the ladder as you go up. It’ll stop the bucket from spinning.”
“Yeah, Dad. I know. You don’t have to tell me.”
“An’ don’t get smart or I’ll come up on the next lift and give y’se a floggin’,” Jasper replied.
On reaching the top Nugget lifted us clear of the shaft cover, then closed it and let us down onto it. “Oh gawd...” he said as we alighted from the kebble. “Another load of rubbish. Hey! How much copper did you thievin’ ratbags pinch?”
We dipped into our pockets and showed him some of our collection. “Blaardy hell!” he yelped. “That’s buggered this month’s profit.”
He opened the shaft-cover again and lowered the bucket back into the workings. “I’m gunna be busy pulling ore now so y’s can clear out and amuse yourselves for a while. An’ at quarter to ten you can boil the billy an’ make smoko.”
We watched as the first kebble of ore came up and was tipped into the skip truck, then followed as Nugget trundled it along to the loading trestle and emptied it into the truck. After that we wandered back to the Palace and sat at the table.
“Whatcha wanna do?” I asked as I spread out my treasure-trove for a closer inspection.
“I dunno. What do you wanna do? ...besides gloat over your hoard that is.”
I didn’t bother to answer. After a while he went to Nugget’s bed and began rummaging in a box of magazines there. “Gees I ain’t seen this one before,” he suddenly said, leafing through an old copy of Man Magazine. He continued to browse as he made his way back to the table.
“So Nugget doesn’t mind you lookin’ through his magazines then?”
“...What? ...Nah, course not ... if he don’t find out, ay.”
I busied myself with my specimens. Later Zack returned the magazine to the box and went over to check the alarm clock Nugget kept on the kero fridge.
It had no glass and the minute hand was just a broken stump. To make an accurate observation you had to stand close to it and look it squarely in the face. It did keep reasonable time, however.
“It’s nearly quarter-to,” Zack said. “I better stir up the fire a bit.”
He’d just finished setting everything on the table when the men arrived. They had a quick mug of tea and a slab of cake each then went straight back to the shaft.
To amuse ourselves until lunchtime Zack and I decided on doing a bit of exploring. From the Palace we headed northward, up past the workings then along the top of the ridge. After about two kilometres we reached what was locally the highest point. Away in the north west we could see the smoke plume from the smelter chimney at Mount Isa and, in the far distance to the west, the great expanse of the Barkly Tableland. Perhaps the stories were right, I thought; it really did look like the edge of the world.
We returned home via the flank of the ridge – a leisurely affair wherein we meandered about investigating anything that took our fancy. About a third of the way back we came upon a seam
of unusual-looking white rock, its weathered fragments scattered all down the hillside. Strangely, no matter the size, each piece appeared to have the same general shape.
This puzzled me, so I pocketed a few of the better pieces for my collection and picked up a larger piece to show Nugget.
When we arrived back Jasper and Peter were washing their hands and Nugget was slicing some cold meat. I showed him the specimen I’d picked up but all he said was “Show us it after lunch; right now y’se better sit down and git inter this.”
Shortly after, as we were sitting around the table “gittin’ inter this”, I was staring out the doorway and thinking of nothing in particular, when through that opening ambled a great yellow lizard. It was nearly a metre and a half in length and was simply magnificent. After looking around the place unconcernedly it began to wander toward where we were sitting.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do. My first thought was, that from a strategic point of view at least, I was fairly well placed. Being farthest from the door; the beast would have to fight its way through my defenders to reach me. At the same time I was puzzled as to why the others were not reacting in any way that seemed appropriate, because it was obvious they’d seen it.
It was Nugget who spoke first, and his words were exactly unlike anything I would have imagined him saying, such as “Shit! Get the gun before ‘e has a go at somebody!”
“G’day, ol’ mate,” he said in a friendly manner. “Where’ve you been? We thought the dingoes must‘ve got y’s.” He cut a chunk of meat from that on his plate, stretched out his leg from the table and – I swear – put the meat on the toe of his shoe. The goanna ambled over, took the proffered morsel, gave a couple of chews then gulped the piece down. And then, like some common, over-indulged lapdog, it looked up to Nugget in expectation of more.
This happened another six times before “me old mate” had eaten his fill. Then, hunger satisfied, he turned away and sauntered out. Nugget carved himself another couple of slices to make up the loss and continued with his lunch.
“Pete was out hunting a few weeks back and found this half-eaten carcase of a big ol’ goanna,” he said to me. “We reckoned it must‘ve been our ol’ mate here ‘cos we ain’t seen ‘im for a while. It was a bit of a surprise to see the old bugger walk in again, I can tell you.”
I found myself at a complete loss. And in no way whatever did Nugget’s comment even begin to address the logjam of questions rattling around in my head. So how could such a relationship get started? I mean what happens when a creature like this first turns up? You can’t just say “G’day old feller – come in and have a bit of lunch with us,” can you.
Nugget must have been reading all this from the expression on my face. “Don’t ever try playin’ poker fer a living,” he said. “You won’t last too long.
“—So how did we get started, me an’ the Ol’ Timer? Well, me lad, I’ll tell you.
“The year before last was the end of a really long dry spell. There was bugger all cattle left around the place and the ‘roos was just skin an’ bone. Anyway, one day I was here by meself havin’ lunch – jus’ like today I s’pose – when this skinny ol’ goanna walks past the door. For some reason ‘e props there, then decides to poke ‘is nose inside – to git out of th’ sun more’n likely cos it was stinkin’ hot. I ‘ad a piece of meat on me fork at the time, but instead of eatin’ it I pulls it off an’ flicks it towards ‘im. Well struth, it only lands right in front of ‘is nose.
“It makes ‘im jump but ‘e don’t clear out, see, cos ‘e gits the smell of it straight away. Course th’ poor ol’ feller’s jus’ starvin’, so ‘e fairly bolts it down. Then ‘e stands there wonderin’ if any more’s gunna turn up.
I cuts off another piece an’ flicks it over, but me aim’s not so good this time – like it falls a bit short. He sees it all right, an’ I reckon be now he’s worked out where it’s comin’ from. Well, by the time ‘e’s had enough an’ cleared out I’ve done most of me flamin’ dinner.
“A few days later ‘e turns up again, ony this time ‘e’s a bit late and by then I’ve finished me lunch, so I gits up real slow like and goes to the fridge to cut ‘im a piece. But does he panic when ‘e sees me walkin’ around? Nope, he just waits by the door till th’ meat starts arrivin’.
After that ‘e gits to be a regular customer – sept in the cold weather, that is. We don’t see ‘im much when it’s cold.
“It’s good to know ‘e’s still doin’ all right but. I kinda missed the ol’ bludger not turnin’ up for ‘is rations.”
Strong words of mateship, indeed. On reflection, though, they were comrades of sorts, with both of them trying to scratch a living from these hard rocky hills.
27. The Interestin’ Coot; and The Fifty-Fifty Split
After lunch we were sitting back enjoying mugs of tea when Nugget said to me: “Gis a look at that rock y’ brung back, young Kevin. Lets see what y’s found,” so I went to my bag and retrieved the larger of the pieces I’d collected and put it on the table.
Nugget looked it over with a practised eye. “I could tell you what it is easy enough,” he said as he stood up and went across to his bed. “But you see, me boy, if I did that it wouldn’t mean nothin’ to you and by next week you’ll have forgotten what I said.” At the bed he pulled out his Gladstone bag, after which he returned to the table with another of his cloth-wrapped surprises, except that this time it was a book.
“What you need to do is find out what it is for yourself,” he added as he unwrapped it – as carefully as a treasured family Bible – and passed it to me. It was a small, thick volume with a black cover and gold lettering.
“Dana’s Manual of Mineralogy”, the title proclaimed, “A Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals”. Inside was written: “To my good friend Nugget Dorado. Presented in appreciation of your valuable experience and assistance on the occasion of my visit to Central Australia. May this book help you find that which you seek”. It was signed, “Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 1924”.
I could see why he treated it so carefully.
“In the middle you’ll find a set of fold-out tables for identifying minerals,” Nugget explained. “Each table’s got a different heading, like “Colour” or “Hardness”, or something like that. You can use ‘em to find out what sort of mineral you’ve got.”
“But gees, Nugget. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Course you would. What colour’s your rock?”
“Well, it’s ... white.”
“So that’s where you start, see. Under, “Colour: White”. Then you look for something else about it that’s easy to reckernise. Do a few tests like; make some observations. Is it hard or soft? What does it look like when you break it? What does it look like when you scratch it? Is it heavy or light?
“Then you go back to the tables an’ cross-tie-in what you seen. And when you get it down t’ two or three possibilities you go to the front part and look up their descriptions, then you work it out from there. Don’t worry, you’ll soon find out what it is.”
Peter and Jasper had started back toward the shaft while Nugget was explaining all this. “Bloody hell!” he yelped. “I better git goin’ b’fore I gits the sack!
“Youse boys can clear the table an’ do the washin’ up. And do it now, too. If you start lookin’ in that bloody book it’ll never get done. …Gawd where’s me bloody hat?”
“Wait up, Nugget. Who was Stefansson?”
“Some bloke from somewhere up near th’ North Pole.”
Nugget scooped up his hat from the floor behind his bed and hurried to the doorway. “He done a trip to the Northern Territory for the Government,” he added, “…out to the Granites to study th’ natives.
“—I give ‘im a hand t’ git around th’ bush.” he yelled back at me from outside. “And make sure our smoko’s ready by three o’clock!”
With the washing up done Zack went to Nugget’s library box, where he found another Man Maga
zine he’d not read. Back on his bunk he resumed his study of the female anatomy. I returned to the table with Nugget’s book and began browsing.
Soon I was immersed in its pages, its contents an absolute revelation. Sense of time and surroundings simply evaporated as I fell deeper into its spell.
Suddenly I became aware of voices and a moment later the men walked in – for afternoon smoko! … the fire in the stove now cold and the billy dry.
“Gawd bugger me!” Nugget exclaimed as we scrabbled to get past them and out to the wood heap. “You blokes are as good as wheels on a bloody windmill!” He followed us back to the door. “…Completely bloody useless, ay! Here’s a man workin’ ‘is guts out, arf perished to bloody death and hangin out fer...” his voice faded off as he turned back inside.
We didn’t hear the rest. We were too busy anyway, filling the chip bucket with kindling to bring the fire up quickly.
“Gees Nugget sorry yeah sorry mate gees mate yeah sorry Nugget,” we volunteered sheepishly on our return.
“Arr git out of it,” he said. “I knew youse’d forget. I saw th’ look in your eyes when you seen that book, young Cassidy. So then, did y’ find out what your rock was?”
Thankful for the change of subject I reported enthusiastically. “I got it down to just two minerals on the tables,” I told him. “After that I turned to the front section, like you said. It was easy to identify which one it is.”
“...And? What is it?”
“It has to be calcite.”
“What was the other one?”
“Something called barite. But this stuff doesn’t seem heavy enough for that. The cleavage angles look wrong, too.”
“Good. Now if you don’t mind you can wrap the book up again an’ put it back in me bag. I’ve had it for a long time an’ I don’t want youse ratbags spillin’ no tea on it or nothin’.”
I don’t know if it was my imagination or my guilty conscience about the smoko, but Nugget seemed a bit on the irritable side. To try and keep some conversation going I thought I might encourage him to tell me more about Stefansson and how he came to present Nugget with the book.
“So what about this Stefansson bloke, Nugget,” I said after a while. “What was he doing in Central Australia?” Nugget didn’t answer immediately but continued with the business of arranging their afternoon tea. In fact for a while I wondered whether he was going to answer at all.
“…Stefansson?” he said eventually. “Now he was an interesting coot.
“He was th’ first bloke ever t’ stay with the Eskimos right through th’ winter up near the North Pole – you know, when th’ sun don’t come up for about three months an’ most of the time it’s dark as inside a dog’s guts.
“The Government got him to do an expedition out to the Granites gold find, see, to do a report on its potential. But he was actually and anthropologist and while he was there he spent time studying the natives about the place. He had that book with him to identify the different minerals they come across.
“I landed a job wif ‘em somehow and went along too – as a general roustabout more or less, not that I was any great help. I was just a bumbling oaf at foot really … forever bringin’ th’ poor bugger rocks to look at when ‘e had better things t’ do.
“Any’ow, before leavin’ he give it to me. ‘You better start doin’ this for y’self,’ ‘e said – proberly felt guilty about gettin’ me started on rocks in the first place; didn’t want to inflict me on no other poor bugger.”
“So what about my rock? Do you reckon it’s calcite?”
“I’m not sayin’. You have to satisfy y’self. ...So then young Cassidy; tell me what you think; is that calcite or not?”
It was obvious he wanted a confident answer. “There can be no doubt,” I declared (rising, I thought, to the occasion). “This fine specimen is definitely calcite. Real fair dinkum dyed-in-the-wool whacko you-beaut calcite – a naturally occurring form of calcium carbonate most commonly found in rocks.”
He glared at me balefully for a couple of seconds. “Don’t be a bloody smart-alec,” he said. In the event I believe I misjudged – to perfection – the moment in which to exhibit my newly-found knowledge.
During smoko the men discussed our return to Mount Isa, as it was now apparent they would not finish loading the truck by nightfall. The best option was for Jasper to return to town in the old Holden, they decided, leaving Nugget and Peter to continue with the ore hauling.
This suited Zack and I very nicely. The loaded truck was – as Zack explained – a long, slow and arduous trip.
Once the decision had been made preparations were quickly set in motion. Peter attended to some mail while Jasper checked over the car. He was not pleased to find the spare tyre flat, so our departure was delayed while it was mended.
Earlier Nugget had started making a brownie-cake. Now, because of the extra time, it would be ready before we left. Zack and I were looking forward to trying a piece but were told to get our things together and roll our swags. This didn’t take long and we were soon back in the Palace, hanging around with nothing better to do than smell the cake cooking – until Nugget ordered us out, that is.
“How about you two gittin’ your bums outside an’ doin’ something useful for a change,” he snapped. “You’re like a bad bloody smell, th’ pair of y’se ... hangin’ around here all the time.”
We exited the Palace like a couple of crows caught in the cake tin. “So what’s got into him?” I yelped as we stumbled into the sunlight.
“Search me. I never seen him as niggly as that before. Maybe it was the smart answer you gave him about the rocks.”
Maybe it was, I thought; maybe it was. Why oh why do I do these things?
It wasn’t long before the tyre was mended and we were ready to leave. Nugget seemed in a better frame of mind by this time and came out of the Palace to see us off. “Here, hold onto this,” he said, handing me a calico flour bag. “I made y’se a few samitches to eat on the road. I done ‘em up separate, too, for each of y’se – in old newspaper – so don’t get ‘em mixed up.
I held the bag open. “Now then, these here ones wrapped in the front page is for Zack,” he explained. “They got arf a bottle of tomato sauce in ‘em, just th’ way ‘e likes it. The other one is his brownie cake.
“And these ones wrapped in the adverts are yours, Mister Cassidy. And because you’re such a smart little bugger I filled ‘em full of rocks.”
“Gees, Nugget. I’m really sorry about the way I spoke to you. It was a stupid thing to say and...”
“Ar, fergit about it,” he said, putting out his hand. “You’re not a bad young bloke and I have to admit I enjoyed your company.”
We shook hands. “Are the other ones for Jasper?” I asked.
“Nah, they’re extras ... in case you’re starvin’ again before y’s gits to Mount Isa. But remember: don’t go swimmin’ anywhere for a coupla days after eatin’ me brownie cake, will you. You might never come up again.
“An’ don’t get ‘em mixed up, neither,” he repeated sternly. I wrapped the buggers all special-like, remember – one for each of y’s.”
“Thanks Nugget,” I said as I stepped into the car. “We won’t,”
“Hey! An’ I know y’s a lot better than you think, too, you pair of bloody ratbags, so no flyin’ into it all at the bottom of the first hill.”
“Gees, Nugget,” I reassured him. “Course not,” – at the same time carefully suppressing the desire to add how we wouldn’t even think of starting on them before the second hill, at least.
Just then Jasper started the engine. As he put it into gear and eased forward onto the track we waved out the windows and shouted our farewells.
The first thing I discovered was that the hills appeared nowhere near as steep from the front seat of a car, nor the road as rough. And even with Jasper driving carefully it wasn’t long before we’d reached the track along the creek and the narrow gap in the range.
Ten minutes later we at the junction with the Dajarra-Mount Isa road and turning northward.
“I reckon I could handle them samitches about now,” Zack said as we headed toward Mount Isa. I delved in the bag for his headline-wrapped package and passed it back, then returned to the bag for my own.
Old Nugget was right about having wrapped them well. I took my parcel from the bag. It felt as if the sandwiches really were filled with rocks. Undoing it proved frustrating, too; like he’d used the entire advertising section one page at a time.
Suddenly my patience gave out and I began tearing the layers open, just as Jasper hit the brakes and we bounced through a series of sharp ruts. I looked up just as I ripped open the final layer.
The old bugger’s paying me back, I thought as I looked back. This doesn’t even feel like bloody sandwiches.
It wasn’t. Lying in the torn paper on my lap was Dana’s Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals … and all I could do was sit there and stare at it in disbelief. It was some time before I could speak again.
“But ... I mean… Gosh, Jasper; there’s gotta be some mistake. He’s given me the wrong package.”
“No mistake, Kev,” said Jasper. “He wants you to have it now.”
“But he can’t. I mean... Well he needs it. He...”
“No son. Even though he treasured it he knows he doesn’t need it any more. In fact he counts himself lucky to have found someone he believes really does need it. And he’s certain you’ll appreciate it as much as he did when it was given to him.”
“I just dunno what to say. Gees, I wish we could go back ... you know, so I could thank him.”
“Nugget doesn’t want your thanks. He just wants you to put it to good use.”
My hunger pangs were reasserting their presence so I went back to the wrappings. At least there’d be a piece of brownie-cake, I thought.
But, Dear Lord – that wasn’t brownie-cake, either.
“Ar flamin’ hell, Jasper,” I said as I held the crystal in my hand. “I don’t think I can handle all this. He’s puttin’ too much on me.”
“Not at all, Kev. The only thing Nugget wants from you is that you do your best. There’s no obligation, mate. See, if geology is the direction you finish up heading – and old Nugget’s usually right about these things – you now have something to help you along and something to provide you with some inspiration.”
“Yeah... But what if I’m not good enough?”
“You don’t have to worry about that. Y’see, me boy, it doesn’t really matter what you finish up doing with your life – whether you become a doctor or a dunny-digger. But if you go the way Nugget reckons you will he’ll know he’s given you a bloody good leg-up.”
“Hey!” put in Zack. “If you ain’t gunna open them other samitches could you chuck ‘em over here?”
Suddenly I realised what had been going on. “That’s why old Nugget wanted us out of the Palace,” I said. “It was so he could set up the sandwich parcels. Gees, th’ cunnin’ old fox.”
“Well, he had to do something. You blokes had your bums well and truly stuck on those chairs.”
“And that’s why he made up the extra package.”
“—But you don’t have t’ eat ‘em if y’ don’t want to, Casey.”
“So why didn’t Nugget simply give ‘em to me while I was there?”
“Because he would have been too embarrassed. Nah mate, he did it just the way he wanted.”
“Look, Casey. Tell you what. I’ll go you halves. That’s fair, ay.”
“What? —Zack, what the hell are y’ talkin’ about?”
“The other pack of samitches. In the bag.”
“What about ‘em?”
“We split ‘em fifty-fifty. What d’you say?”
“Gees Zack, you’re bloody hopeless.” I tossed the bag over to the back. “Leave me a few crumbs, ay.”
Zack tipped out the parcel and started tearing at its wrappings. “Yeah, mate; course,” he said in a slightly hurt tone. “Fifty-fifty, ay.”
* * *
Kevin Cassidy The Cassidy Chronicles Page 28
