To Chase the Storm: The Frontier Series 4

by Peter Watt

  ‘I’ll shout you and your mates to a round in the hotel and we will forget what happened here.’

  The stockman frowned as he was helped to his feet and rubbed his jaw.

  ‘Yer a strange one, mate,’ he said. ‘But yer all right. I think I’ll buy you a beer. Yer the first bloke who ever put me down around here.’ The tension was gone and he slapped Michael on the back. ‘Me name’s Jacko, an’ these are me mates.’

  Helen was still transfixed by the sudden unleashing of violence that had occurred. One second two men appeared to be intent on killing each other and the next they were the best of friends, slapping each other on the back. She shifted her gaze to Michael’s face, unmarked by the fight, and again thought her Aunt Penelope may have been right. Fighter, painter, poet – and lover. To date she had only seen a gentle, sensitive man old enough to be her father, but she remembered how he had in fact been her mother’s lover and was the father of her half-brother, Patrick Duffy. Now she found herself wondering at his skills as a lover and felt guilt surge through her body. He was extremely dangerous to women, she reminded herself, despite his age. But he was also a man who had seen much violence in his life. Not all his scars, she suspected, were physical.

  Michael turned from the verandah with a smile and, as if reading her thoughts, winked. ‘You will find a nice room waiting for you inside. And I wouldn’t mind if you looked after young Alex for me while I go and have a drink with the boys.’

  Helen nodded, speechless.

  The word quickly spread around the little frontier town of Jacko’s defeat at the fists of the one-eyed stranger. And the word spread to the publican’s wife, a pretty woman in her mid-forties with flaming red hair and milky pale skin. Between rounds in the busy afternoon swill of the hotel’s public bar, she was able to engage the stranger in light conversation. She could not help being entranced by his easygoing charm and slow smile. Here was a gentleman, rare in the rough back country of Queensland.

  Michael was not slow to see the signs. The publican’s wife was more than just interested in him as another patron of the hotel. There was something in her eyes and the way her hand lingered on his when she served him a tot of rum. It was only a matter of waiting for the cloak of night to arrive to see if he would taste more than the alcohol the hotel had to offer.

  While his wife took Alex for a walk to see the few shops in the town, Karl decided to remain in the tiny hotel room to make notes on his meeting with the Aborigines he had encountered east of Cloncurry. Helen did not mind and Alex proved to be good company, although his recounting the way Mr O’Flynn had beaten the younger stockman did become repetitive.

  ‘He was so fast, Aunt Helen, and when he hit the other man . . . I wonder if Mr O’Flynn could teach me to fight like that?’

  She smiled and tolerated his excited prattle. ‘Fighting is not good, Alexander,’ she replied gently. ‘It is not God’s way.’

  ‘Yes, but if Mr O’Flynn had not hit the other man then he would have hurt the pastor. And he might have hurt you and me.’

  ‘I’m sure your Uncle Karl would have talked the man out of hurting us. Your uncle is a very learned man of books and knows many things.’

  ‘But he does not know how to fight like Mr O’Flynn,’ the boy replied somewhat tactlessly as he walked beside his aunt along the dusty street. ‘Sometimes books are no good out here.’

  Helen had to agree with the boy’s observations. This was a strange and hostile land where values were measured according to a tough, dogged spirit of survival – not the works of philosophers writing from the comfort of civilisation. As she walked she was hardly aware of the dusty streets and the frontier town’s shops. Her thoughts were in turmoil as she fought her rising feelings. Although she was desperately attempting to quash her desire for Michael, she could not help wondering what it would be like to just once in her life feel his body become part of hers.

  When Helen and Alex finally returned to the hotel mid-afternoon, Michael Duffy was leading the bar in a round of Irish songs. Helen went to her room where she found her husband busy at his notes. She sat on the bed and watched him scribbling in his journal, feeling a desperate need for physical release. But she knew her pious husband was immune from such carnal cravings so she lay back on the bed and allowed him to continue with his work. She soon fell asleep, waking only when it was time to join him and the others for a meal in the hotel’s dining room.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Michael was not at dinner and nor was he still drinking in the public bar. Helen did not really know why she should be concerned except that she and Karl needed him to guide them into the Godkin Ranges north of Cloncurry the next day. She was annoyed that he should disappear for the evening. He would be of no use if he turned up drunk or hungover.

  She had little appetite for the plate of badly cooked steak on the cracked china plate and complained peevishly to the young girl who served the meal. But, a growing boy with a big appetite, Alex did not mind the overcooked meat and mushy vegetables. The journey was turning his puppy fat into muscle and his fair skin was now tanned. He bore little resemblance to the pallid, timid boy who lived overlooking Sydney’s magnificent harbour.

  Karl was preoccupied but still found the stifling heat had taken much of his appetite. He would have preferred a plate of venison accompanied by a goblet of crisp, chilled Rhine wine, but such luxuries were things of his father’s home in Prussia. The best he could get here was a dirty tumbler of lukewarm gin. He glanced up at his wife when she snapped at the waitress, a girl of barely fourteen wearing a grubby dress that looked as if it had not been changed in many dinner sittings. ‘Hush, my wife,’ he said gently in German. ‘The young lady is not the cook of this meal before us.’

  The girl stood aside and curled her lip with contempt for the churlish foreigners.

  ‘Where is your cook?’ Helen asked angrily. ‘I would like to send this back to the kitchen.’

  ‘Dunno,’ the girl answered with a sneer. ‘Probably somewhere with that big Irishman, for all I know. Old Arthur’s doin’ the cookin.’

  Helen stared at the girl in bewilderment. ‘With the cook!’

  ‘Yeah, probably. She’s ’ad her eye on him all arvo. Just hope Mr Crofton don’t find out or ’e will give her a real thrashin’. ’E’s the publican.’

  ‘But you know,’ Helen argued. ‘Why should the innkeeper not also know?’

  The girl gave Helen a curious look.

  ‘’E an’ his missus don’ get on. Don’t think ’e cares so long as she keeps to ’erself what she does,’ the brazen waitress replied with an understanding far beyond her tender years.

  Helen dropped her line of inquiry and pushed her plate aside.

  The tinned peaches that followed the main course proved to be somewhat more appetising. Karl commented that they should stock up on tinned fruit from the local store before they set out on the next leg of their search but Helen paid him little heed. Her thoughts were focused on Michael’s betrayal. Betrayal of what? The question echoed in her mind as they left the dining room and headed for their beds, the drunken merriment of the raucous frontiersmen carrying with them to their stuffy room.

  Alexander found his stretcher on the verandah and was soon being entertained by an old prospector who regaled the young boy with stories of his life. Commanche Jack had an American accent and a face that bore the scars of his escapades. Alex listened, enthralled by Jack’s adventures fighting Indians on the American frontier.

  When Alex told him that he was travelling to the Godkin Ranges the next day the old man sighed. ‘Used to be big blackfellas up there a few years ago,’ he said, scratching at the sweat under his grey beard. ‘Big warriors called Kalkadoon, amongst the finest and bravest of the fightin’ men I ever fought. That was back in ’84 when we trapped ’em on a hill, but theys wouldn’t surrender an’ died to a man. Wes just kept shootin’ until theys was no more standin’ up to fight anymore. All gone now an’ that’s the pity of it.’ He bowed his head as
if remembering another time in his life. ‘You remember old Commanche Jack, young fella, when you go ridin’ in the Godkins. Remember those big heathens who stood and died like real men out there.’

  Alex nodded. The gruff old American told stories the likes of which he had only read about back home, so far from this noisy verandah. How could he forget Commanche Jack? Before Alex knew it, he was dozing.

  Sleep did not come so easily to Helen. She lay beside her husband in the big, sagging double bed. The noise from the bar continued, accentuated by the tinkling crash of a glass. This was followed by the heightened voices of men locked in an argument, which in turn gave way to the sounds of a scuffle and the voices of men swearing as they slugged it out in a fight. Suddenly she missed the serenity of the nights spent on the plains by a campfire listening to the soft sounds of the bush, the swish of birds in flight or the sweet song of a nearby creek, broken occasionally by the splash of a big fish rising from the water. Helen sat up and felt the perspiration run in rivulets between her breasts.

  ‘You cannot sleep?’ Karl asked. ‘It is very hot.’

  ‘No, I cannot sleep, Karl,’ she answered, placing her feet on the wooden floor and proceeding to gather her dress from a sideboard. ‘I think I shall go for a short walk. Perhaps that will help tire me.’

  Her husband cast a concerned look in the semidarkness of the room. A light from the hallway filtered under the door and from the fanlight above it. ‘Do you think that is wise at this time of night? The men around here are rough and unpredictable.’

  Helen touched her husband’s face with her long fingers. ‘They may be rough and unpredictable,’ she said gently, ‘but I do not fear them as much as I fear not being able to sleep.’

  Karl watched her dress. He sensed that she had things on her mind. Maybe it would be better if she went for a short walk.

  Helen made her way down the hall and out through the back door of the hotel where she found herself in the backyard, bordered by the horse stables. She did not really have a clue where she would go but knew she had to get away from the confines of the hotel room. Or was it that she had to get away from Karl? She had never really questioned their marriage until she had set out on this journey across Queensland’s vast plains. She had always accepted her husband as an intelligent, kind and sensible man who had professed his need for her. She had also come to accept that they could not have children, though it was never certain which one of them was barren. Their lives had settled into a comfortable routine in Germany and the most exciting thing Karl had ever suggested was this: to travel to the country of her birth and undertake missionary work and his academic studies of Aboriginal people. She had agreed to his dream as the thought of a change in their lives promised something. But what? Nothing had really changed in her life, Helen reflected. Her gentle, educated husband had simply been transplanted in terms of geography alone.

  Helen crossed the yard with the intention of strolling out into the street to take in the night air, away from the smell of horses, when she suddenly froze at the sound that came from the stables. There was no mistaking Michael’s deep voice. Nor was there any mistake in comprehending what was occurring. Helen felt her face flush at the unmistakable sounds of a woman in ecstasy. The young girl had been right!

  Helen’s curiosity was overwhelming. Cautiously she made her way across the yard and keeping to the shadows she slipped through the open door of the stables. She sank back against the wall, her eyes sweeping the darkness until she saw movement. She felt her breath coming in small gasps as if she were suffocating. Even in the dark she was aware that the undulating shape was that of a naked woman straddled across a man lying back against a pile of horse rugs. The woman’s long hair flowed over her shoulders and down her naked back. Michael’s hands were on her breasts as she moved her hips slowly and rhythmically, moaning softly in her pleasure. Helen could not tear herself away. So now she was witnessing the pleasure the Irishman could bring to a woman in ways that did not bide by God’s laws. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Helen became aware of Michael staring back at her.

  In guilty terror, Helen spun on her heel and ran from the stables out onto the dark street. Slumping finally in a vacant yard across from the hotel, she found herself weeping uncontrollably. She huddled on the dry earth, staring up at the brilliance of the star-studded sky until she felt she was suitably in control of her emotions. Then she stood, brushed herself down, and walked unsteadily back to the yard. Michael was sitting on the step of the hotel’s back verandah smoking. Beside him was a bottle of cheap rum. Helen felt her heart pounding in panic. He was barring the way to her room. She hesitated for just a moment before walking towards him.

  ‘Good evening, Helen,’ Michael said softly as he took a long puff on his cigar. ‘I was worried that what you saw might upset you.’

  ‘Why should it, Mr Duffy?’ Helen asked defiantly. ‘I saw only animals in their natural state.’

  Michael chuckled softly and took a swig from the bottle.

  ‘I’ve been called worse,’ Michael said with a sigh. ‘But not by a woman as pretty as you.’

  ‘I expect you have been called many things worse. Murderer, mercenary, cad.’

  ‘Cad, now there’s a word I wasn’t expecting,’ Michael replied as he stared up at her with a smile. ‘But it is pretty mild compared to murderer.’

  ‘Well, you are, aren’t you?’ Helen spat contemptuously.

  Michael looked away for a moment, avoiding her angry stare. ‘It depends whose side you were on when I did the killing,’ he replied with an edge of pain and bitterness in his voice. ‘To the British, I was a necessity. Albeit one that they kept quiet about. To Mr Abe Lincoln I was a hero. He even gave me a medal to show how he valued my services to the Union way back then. But that was before you were born anyway, so I suppose it doesn’t count. And I should not forget your own family, Helen. To your grandmother, Lady Macintosh, my services a quarter of a century ago up along the Palmer River settled a matter of vengeance for your Uncle David’s death.’

  Helen sensed the pain in his reflections and felt guilty for her accusing words. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t know why I said those things to you. I suppose it’s just that you once loved my mother, and that seeing you in the stables with that woman felt like a betrayal to her memory.’

  ‘To her memory,’ Michael said, staring into her eyes, ‘or to your feelings? But you have nothing to fear from me,’ he continued. ‘You are the daughter of a woman I once loved very much.’ He took a long swig from the bottle and rose to his feet. Helen felt his hand touch her cheek and brush back a wisp of her hair from her face. ‘God knows that I want you more than anything else on earth right now,’ he said in a tight breath.

  Tender feelings mixed with yearning welled up in Helen. She placed her hand over his and pressed it into her skin, as if attempting to absorb his very soul.

  ‘If only we had met in another lifetime, Mr Duffy,’ Helen said with a strangled sob. ‘If only God had granted us another life to live away from your past and my present. Perhaps then, everything would have been different.’

  Dropping his hand abruptly, Helen brushed past Michael to the room she shared with her husband.

  Michael drained the bottle before staggering to his bed on the verandah. He could not change the past. In the morning the sun would once again rise over the plains. He was to yet meet with the mystical old warrior who held the answers to so many of the terrible events that had haunted the two families for so many years. He had a job to do.

  THIRTY

  Under cover of the bitterly cold night, Captain Butters sent the wounded back to the main defensive position with the water cart detail. Amongst them was Trooper Matthew Duffy. He was able to walk. The piece of jagged shrapnel had ripped through the fleshy part of his side and, other than an ugly open wound, had not damaged any vital organs.

  Matthew trudged slowly with his rifle slung over his shoulder. The small column of soldiers was winding
its way north towards the once insignificant rocky mound that was now as important to each of them as any geographical feature on earth. Matthew reflected on how lucky he was to be alive, despite his wound. Another few inches to one side and the shrapnel might have disembowelled him. He had lost a lot of blood, as the soaked wad of bandages strapped to his side testified. But it had all happened so haphazardly that Matthew hardly remembered the explosion.

  One minute he had been lying face down behind the sanger of rocks as the shells came raining down and the next moment he felt as if he had been kicked in the side by a giant wearing a red hot boot. Matthew did not remember screaming but he must have. A fellow soldier had leapt to hold him down as he had attempted to stand. To do so would have meant certain death as the deadly sprays of shrapnel sought out anything alive above ground level.

  When the bleeding was stemmed Matthew had lain on his back and watched a hawk circling above the battlefield in the blue sky. He had wished that he was that hawk and could fly from this terrible place of carnage. The little water that could be spared was given to him and although the pain was excruciating, he slipped into a blissful state of unconsciousness until the night came when he was ordered to join the others making their way back to the field hospital.

  As Matthew and the rest of the walking wounded passed through the picquets manning the outer trenches, they were assailed by the stench of decomposition. Dead horses, mules and oxen littered the slopes from the first day of the siege. The unpleasant stink of their own unwashed bodies was hardly noticeable to the soldiers anymore.

  At the hospital, a bullet riddled wagon behind walls of tinned meat and bags of flour, the doctor examined Matthew’s wound and changed the dressing. At his own insistence Matthew was given permission to man the defences. The doctor, however, was concerned about infection and gave the young soldier strict orders to report each day to have the dressing changed.