The man groaned and the crowd sighed out its relief, breaking into ragged cheers.
‘Hunt!’ Mr Penrose’s voice rose above the general hubbub. ‘Where are you hurt, man?’
‘Is the boy … all right?’
All eyes turned to Danny.
‘He’s fine,’ Netty answered for him. ‘Thanks to you.’
Danny wriggled free and Netty rose to her feet, all brisk efficiency once more as she went to the injured man. She knelt beside him. ‘Oh dear … your leg …’ Danny heard her say in a low voice. She looked up at the crowd. ‘You men, carry this man across to the post office and I’ll see to his injuries.’
‘Ma’am, I’ll be just fine,’ said the man in the waistcoat as he struggled to his elbows, but he had obviously never had to deal with Netty.
She glared down at him. ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’
Forgotten, Danny hovered on the edge of the crowd. He wanted to say it was all his fault and that he didn’t want the stranger to die, but words failed him. All he could do was stare in horror at the man’s torn trousers and the blood welling from his left leg.
The window panes rattled and the inkwell on the counter of the post office juddered as the mine explosion rocked the town. Adelaide glanced up from the ledger she was working on. Through the curtained windows she could see the outline of the Shady Creek coach across the road.
She set the pen back in its stand and closed the ledger. The arrival of the coach meant that Amos Burrell would be in with the Melbourne mailbags and the man had the annoying habit of just slamming them down on the counter, sending anything in their vicinity flying in a cloud of dust.
A woman’s scream and the raised voices of men penetrated the post office. Adelaide hurried to the door, fully expecting to see brawling miners spilling from the Miner’s Arms.
A large crowd had gathered around the coach. Amos Burrell’s attention was directed at his horses. He held Mac’s bridle and ran a hand down the big horse’s nose. Mac’s ears flicked and his feet shuffled in the dust. But the centre of the crowd’s attention appeared to be Netty, her bonnet hanging from her neck by its strings as she bent over a man lying in the dirt.
Adelaide cast around the crowd for Danny and saw him sitting on the edge of the boardwalk. He looked her way and her breath caught at the sight of his dusty face, muddy tracks marking the course of tears. He stood up and came running towards her, throwing his arms around her waist and burying his filthy face in her apron.
‘It wasn’t my fault.’ His words were muffled by her skirts.
But before she could ask what wasn’t his fault, Netty crossed the road, followed by a party of men carrying the injured man on a stretcher.
‘I’ll have no drunken miner in here,’ Adelaide said as the group approached.
The Maiden’s Creek Mine superintendent, Will Penrose, stepped onto the boardwalk in front of the post office, hat in his hands. ‘Apologies, Mrs Greaves, but you are closest and this man just saved your Danny.’
Adelaide looked at Netty.
‘One of the coach horses, Adelaide,’ Netty said. ‘Spooked by the explosion. He pushed Danny away just in time.’
Adelaide glanced down at the dirty face of her son’s saviour. His eyes were closed and his colour did not look good.
‘Is he badly hurt?’
‘His leg,’ Netty said. ‘Could be broken. Carry him in, gents.’
As the stretcher party passed, Adelaide’s gaze travelled along the length of the man’s body. Someone had tied a dirty neckcloth around his left thigh. Whatever colour it had been originally, it now glistened with blood. As she watched, a drip of blood splattered on the spotless floorboards of the post office. A perverse thought about the difficulty of scrubbing away blood stains crossed Adelaide’s mind.
‘Carry him through to the kitchen,’ she said and hurried ahead to throw open the door to the residence.
William Penrose remained in the doorway, watching as the rescue party tramped through Adelaide’s neat parlour.
‘Mr Penrose, what can you tell me about this man?’ she asked.
‘His name is Caleb Hunt. He came up on the coach from Melbourne. Beyond that, I can’t tell you much more,’ he said. ‘Shall I fetch the doctor?’
‘That would be a good idea, Mr Penrose.’
The man nodded and after he had shut the door behind him, Adelaide turned to Danny, who sat on the bench Adelaide kept in the office, head in his hands.
She crouched in front of him. ‘Tell me what happened, Danny.’
‘I saw the coach had come in and Netty gave me some carrots for the horses. She was talking to Amos. Then there was an explosion up at the mine that frightened Mac.’ His lip wobbled. ‘I couldn’t move and the man grabbed me and flung me out of the way. I think the horse hit his leg.’ His eyes welled with tears. ‘Are you very cross, Mama?’
Adelaide shook her head. ‘No one’s cross with you, Danny. It wasn’t your fault.’ She brushed the dusty fair hair from his eyes and forced a smile. ‘You know Mac is a lovely, gentle horse. He would never hurt you. He just got a bad fright.’
‘But that man got hurt.’
‘It doesn’t look too bad,’ she lied. ‘Now you go and wash your face and tidy your clothes and Netty and I will see to—’ What had Penrose said the man’s name was? ‘Mr Hunt.’
She paused long enough to close the post office, turning the sign in the window. Amos still had to bring in the mail but he knew her well enough to use the back door.
A trail of blood drips marked the rescue party’s progress through her home and she found them in the kitchen, standing in a respectful circle around the table on which the unconscious man had been laid.
‘Thank you for your help, gentlemen,’ Adelaide said. ‘Mr Penrose has gone to fetch the doctor. You can return to your drinks.’
One of the men jutted his bearded chin at the man on the table. ‘Your boy’d be dead if it weren’t for him. Never seen a body move so fast.’
Adelaide gave a curt nod. ‘I will thank him properly when he is conscious.’ After the men shuffled out Adelaide turned to Netty. ‘If you hadn’t been flirting with Amos, this wouldn’t have happened. You’re a grown woman not a seventeen-year-old maid,’ she snapped.
‘I’ll fetch some clean cloths,’ Netty sniffed and flounced out of the room, leaving Adelaide alone with her guest.
The man’s jacket had fallen away, revealing a revolver in a well-worn holster. The sight of the weapon sent a chill down her spine. Very few men carried weapons even in this wild part of the world. She may not like guns but she knew enough about them to handle them correctly and she unbuckled the holster and withdrew the weapon.
She held the butt between her finger and thumb. The long barrel and revolving chamber of the weapon gleamed from regular care and the wood of the stock was polished to a high sheen from handling. The intricate inlay on the butt marked it as a weapon of some value and undoubted importance to its owner. She unloaded the firearm and set it on a side table with its ammunition.
Whoever Mr Hunt was, he felt dangerous and the sooner he was gone from her house the better.
Gritting her teeth, she peeled back the fabric from the wound on his leg. It had stopped bleeding but it looked nasty, a blackening mass swelling the leg above the knee. The horse had caught him a glancing blow. Certainly enough to inconvenience him for a while.
‘I’m right sorry to be a nuisance.’
Adelaide started at the low voice that carried the soft, flattened vowels of an American. She turned to look into his face. A pair of steady slate-grey eyes watched her with a peculiar intensity. ‘You’re not a nuisance,’ she replied. ‘By all accounts, you saved my son and for that I thank you.’
He moved his leg and grimaced, the corners of his eyes creasing into well-carved grooves. ‘I don’t think it’s broken,’ he said through tight lips. ‘Just patch it up and I’ll be on my way.’
‘I’ll let the doctor be the judge of that,’ Adelaide
said and looked up at a sharp rap on the back door. ‘Thank goodness.’
She stood aside to admit William Penrose and Dr Alfred Bowen, an Irishman in his late middle age with a cheerful disposition and a reputation for not being sober after midday. As Dr Bowen passed she caught whiskey fumes and frowned, hoping the doctor wouldn’t need to do anything too serious with his patient.
They were followed by Amos Burrell carrying the mailbags.
‘Is ’e all right?’ Amos jerked his head at Hunt.
Adelaide glared at the coachman. ‘Next time pay more attention to your duties and less to a pretty face and these accidents won’t happen. Now go and put the mail in the post office and come back here. We may need you.’
Amos looked down at his dusty boots and mumbled something that sounded like ‘Yes, ma’am,’ as he sidled out of the door, passing Netty. The two exchanged glances and Netty coloured.
Penrose and Bowen stood looking down at the stranger. Bowen slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a battered silver flask from which he took a swig.
Penrose glanced at Adelaide and shrugged. They had no choice. Bowen was the only doctor in Maiden’s Creek and his drinking did not generally seem to affect his skills.
They were not the only ones to notice Bowen’s flask—the eyes of the injured man were fixed on it. ‘If you’ve anything in that flask, doc, I’d be grateful,’ he said.
Bowen looked at the object in his hand as if noticing it for the first time. ‘Just a drop to steady my nerves,’ he said before passing the American the flask.
The man took a swig and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Tastes like something you brewed yourself,’ he said.
‘I’ll have you know that is the best Irish whiskey,’ Bowen said.
The injured man’s mouth twitched in a smile. ‘If that’s the best, glad I’ve not had the pleasure of tasting the worst.’
‘Dr Bowen is here to see to your leg, not compare liquor,’ Adelaide said.
The man nodded. ‘I can tell you, doc, there’s nothing broken.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Bowen said stiffly.
‘Not sure you’re in a state to be much of a judge of anything,’ Adelaide said.
Bowen capped his flask and slid it back into his pocket. ‘I’d thank you to let me get on with my job. What’s your name?’
‘Hunt, Caleb Hunt.’ He closed his eyes and grimaced as the doctor prodded the injury.
Bowen straightened and took another swig from his flask. ‘You’re lucky.’
Hunt opened his eyes.
‘You’re right—the femur is not broken. There’s a nasty laceration, which I can stitch, and you’re going to have an almighty bruise. You won’t be going anywhere for a few days.’
‘I have things to do.’ Caleb Hunt had bitten his lip during Bowen’s less than gentle ministrations and Netty wiped away a trickle of blood.
‘They will have to wait. It’ll be a week at least before you can walk on that leg.’
‘Where’s he going to stay? He can hardly stay here,’ Adelaide said.
Bowen mopped his face and looked around Adelaide’s kitchen. ‘And where else do you think he is going to go, Mrs Greaves?’
‘I don’t want to be a bother to this good lady—’ the man began, attempting to pull himself up on his elbows, but Bowen quelled him with a look.
He turned to Adelaide. ‘We’ve no hospital and I would hardly trust this man to the ministrations of any of the publicans in town—or their good ladies. I know you for a good Christian lady, and as Mr Hunt is, by all accounts, responsible for saving the life of your son, I think a few days’ rest in your care is the least you can offer.’
‘I have work to do and nowhere to put him,’ she said, but even as she uttered the words she anticipated Netty’s response.
‘Don’t be silly, Adelaide, I can see to him and there’s Mick’s shed.’
Something that might have been a smile caught at the corner of the man’s lips. ‘Mick’s shed would do me just fine, ma’am, as long as Mick has no objection.’
‘Mick’s over in Aberfeldy,’ Netty replied. ‘He won’t mind.’
The man, Caleb Hunt, fell back on the table and closed his eyes. ‘This is not how I imagined my arrival in Maiden’s Creek,’ he muttered.
Five
12 December 1871
A single pinpoint of light flickered behind Caleb’s eyelids. He took a deep breath, expelling it with a heavy sigh as he tried to move his leg. It may not be broken but he had never experienced such agony, and that included bullets and bayonets. He had a vague memory of the doctor administering a healthy dose of laudanum and after that only darkness and a dream that he was back in Elmira Prison camp, a recurring nightmare of cold and pain and hunger.
A shadow blotted out the light and a hand rested on his forehead. He opened his eyes. A pale oval hovered above him, which resolved into a woman’s face—a dark-haired woman in dark clothes.
He remembered her now, the postmistress in her black, high-necked gown, her hair drawn away from her face and fastened in a tight bun at the back of her head. But the severity of her appearance could not hide the high cheekbones, straight nose and bow-shaped mouth. He dug around in his memory for her name. Someone had mentioned it in the kitchen. Greaves … that was it.
He swallowed. He could do with a drink, any drink, to assuage his dry mouth and throat.
‘Mrs Greaves?’ he croaked. ‘What time is it?’
‘Past midnight,’ she replied. She seemed to study him, her head cocked, her eyes lost in the shadows thrown by the single candle that burned on a table behind her.
‘Too kind—’ he began, intending to thank her for being there when he awoke.
‘Not kindness. I just didn’t want to wake to a dead body.’
‘I’m not planning to die just yet and I’m sorry to be a burden to you,’ Caleb said.
She bit her lip and her tone softened as she said, ‘I spoke harshly. I apologise.’
‘Could I trouble you for a drink of water?’
‘Of course. I’m sorry. You must be parched. Laudanum does that.’
She helped him to drink from a tin pannikin. The water tasted sweet and he hoped it did not come from the noisome creek that he had seen, and smelled, on his arrival in the town.
‘I have a water tank,’ she said as he laid down again. ‘Clean drinking water is a premium in this town. Fortunately rain is not.’
‘Where am I?’
‘There is a man who helps me with the mail runs and I let him sleep here when he is in town.’
‘Mick?’
She nodded. ‘Fortunately for you, he is visiting relatives in Aberfeldy but he’ll be back tomorrow to take the mail up the track. He always seems to know when the mail comes in.’ She looked around the little room. ‘It’s not much, but it’s clean and dry.’
The bed seemed little more than a narrow cot but the linen carried the scent of sun and soap and the smell of fresh hewn wood filled the room. Caleb looked up into the shadows at the rough bark of a roof rising above him. He had certainly known much worse.
He sat up with a start. ‘Where’s my box?’
The woman glanced at a corner of the room. ‘Over there. Burrell brought it across from the coach.’
‘My revolver?’
‘Safe. I secured it in your box, Mr Hunt’
The familiar waves of panic started to wash over him. ‘It’s locked. How did you …?’
Her lips curved in a small, tight smile. ‘But you wear the key around your neck. We had to open it. This is a house of women, Mr Hunt. We are not possessed of a man’s night attire.’
Caleb plucked at the frayed cuff of his nightshirt. He had no memory of these women stripping him or any idea how they got him from the kitchen to the hut.
Again, she answered his thoughts. ‘Fortunately Amos Burrell was able to assist us in seeing you settled.’
He touched his chest and found the key hung once more from
the string around his neck.
She cleared her throat. ‘I have to thank you for what you did today. Danny is my only son and he could have been killed.’ She paused. ‘You could have been killed.’
‘It takes a lot to kill me, ma’am, and trust me, plenty have tried.’
‘I saw the scars, Mr Hunt. I suppose they are the legacy of that terrible war?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Dr Bowen seems to think you will heal without any lasting damage. You were lucky.’ She took an audible breath. ‘How is the leg?’
‘In truth, ma’am, it hurts like the very devil.’
‘I’m afraid I have no more laudanum to offer you and we are limited in what we can do. Netty made a mash of parsley, which she says is highly efficacious in the reduction of bruising. The doctor will be back in the morning.’
‘Parsley mash?’ That explained the strange vegetable smell in the room. It made him think of the fish his mother used to produce for Friday dinners, lathered in a parsley sauce. The memory provoked a chuckle.
‘I fail to see the humour,’ Mrs Greaves said.
Caleb shook his head. It was not something he had any wish to explain. Now he just wanted to sleep. ‘Thank you for your concern and kindness, Mrs Greaves, but I have kept you from your own bed long enough.’
She stood and pulled the sheet and blanket up around him as if he were her son. ‘I have left a bell by your bed. If you need help, just ring. I’m a light sleeper.’
She took the candle, closing the door softly behind her.
He lay in the dark, listening to the sounds of the night: the rhythmic stamp of the gold battery, distant music and drunken laughter and the chatter of unknown insects. The sounds of Maiden’s Creek. The start of a new life, he thought, as he drifted into an uneasy sleep.
Caleb woke to daylight and the uncomfortable feeling he was being watched. He ran a hand across his eyes and turned his head to the door. A boy leaned against the door jamb, regarding him with solemn eyes and a down-turned mouth.
‘You must be Danny,’ Caleb croaked.
The boy nodded.
‘Can you pass me a drink of water?’ Caleb indicated the jug on a rickety table beside the bed.
The Postmistress Page 4
