by Peter Corris
The boy gave the horse a last pat and moved away. Perry put the notebook back into his saddlebag and fastened the buckle.
'I wish I could go with you,' Sarah said. 'I would very much like to see those old places.'
'Perhaps one day,' Perry said.
She smiled at him and followed Adolph back to the church.
Perry rode in the direction of the mountains, reading the country well and judging the best place to ford streams and how to avoid the extensive patches of thick mulga scrub. Jamaica, apparently invigorated by the race and his owner's purposefulness, relished the going and Perry made good time. The day was clear and cold. Perry wore a sheepskin coat that had travelled with him from Arizona, a flannel shirt and moleskin trousers. In his saddlebags were some bread and cold meat he had scrounged in the kitchen and an ounce of tea. He had a groundsheet, a waterproof poncho, blanket, wax matches, skillet and billy and a flask of rum. His rifle and shotgun were at Fanlock, but he had a Webley Scott revolver with which he could achieve a fair accuracy. Scrub turkeys, rabbits, wallabies and wild ducks abounded, and Perry had no doubt he could live off the land if need be.
He reached the foothills of the Ranges in the early afternoon and consulted Sarah's map. He found it admirably clear and detailed and had no difficulty locating the long gorge that led into the heart of the range. As Sarah had said, the creeks were running strongly after the recent rain and he had to divert several times and even backtrack to keep to the line indicated on the drawing. He found the pile of rocks with the single, stark tree protruding and worked his way upstream along the river bank, looking for the three-way division. It was cold in the shadow of the mountains and Perry drew his coat closer around him. He judged that he had only a few hours of daylight left and he began to fear that the watercourses had shifted and that he might not find the place before dark.
He skirted a reed-choked pool and was about to leave the creek bed to look for higher ground when he saw the change in the pattern of the water. The stream was broken and churning. He urged the horse through the suddenly deeper water onto a sandy island where he could get a view around a bend. Up ahead he saw the creek divide into two quietly running flows and a third that bubbled down much faster from a rocky chute. Perry gave an excited whoop that echoed in the deep gorge and sent a flock of birds whirring away from a tall stand of trees. He picked his way carefully to the water's edge and consulted the map. According to Sarah's directions the cave was a mere 100 yards past the stream junction on the upper reaches of the most easterly branch.
The shadows were long and the light in the gorge had dropped by the time Perry located the cave. He saw immediately that the track to it, sheltered by overhanging branches, had been recently used by horses. The marks were indistinct after the effects of running water, scampering animals and wind. Perry dismounted and examined them closely.
'Two horses,' he said. 'Probably.'
He realised how tired and cold he was after the long ride. His boots had got wet in all the stream crossing and he felt an urgent need for rest and warmth. He unsaddled and hobbled Jamaica and the horse moved contentedly away to crop at the grass and bushes growing near the mouth of the cave, as other horses had done not long before. Perry piled his kit near the dark entrance and collected a supply of fuel for a fire. He constructed a torch of twigs and dried reeds and lit it with a match. When it was burning brightly he took a bundle of wood under his arm, stooped and entered the cave. For the first few steps he had to maintain the bent posture, then the cave opened up into an irregularly shaped vault, with low-roofed sections and other higher parts over a sandy floor strewn with flints and shingles. In the light of the torch Perry saw where a fire had burnt recently. He dropped his wood there, nudged it into shape with his boot and thrust the torch into it. The wood caught and burnt well.
Up-draught, Perry thought. The Jardwa would have been safe and snug in here all right. He retrieved his bags and equipment from the entrance and carried them into the cave. Then he dragged and carried in sufficient wood to sustain a fire for a night. He took his canteen and made one last excursion out into the gloom to get water and check on the horse. Jamaica had found a spring tricking from a crack in the rocks and was drinking happily. Perry pulled up some succulent grass, fed the horse and stroked its muzzle. He filled the canteen and went back inside the cave.
The cave, he calculated, could easily hold thirty or forty people. It had recesses and small offshoots that might go a considerable distance. His original plan had been to search the cave, imagining that it could have served as a hiding place. On seeing its size he was daunted. To search thoroughly, even in daylight, would require the use of a torch and would take days or a lot of manpower. He put more wood on the fire and was about to spread his groundsheet when he saw something glinting in the dirt. He bent and examined the spot, poking the dirt with a fingernail. Tiny specks glittered in the firelight. Perry moistened his fingertip and dabbed.
'Jesus Christ,' he said when he lifted his finger closer to his eyes. 'Gold dust. They cut the bloody thing up.'
He carefully searched the area around the fire and was able to distinguish where the two men had arranged themselves. He found more specks in other places and concluded that the nugget had been divided into two or more pieces. No need to consider hiding places now. From Fanshawe's description he had judged that the nugget would have been a cumbersome object, awkward to transport, difficult to conceal and impossible to negotiate without attracting attention. But divided into several pieces, and yielding perhaps a considerable quantity of dust to provide a stake, the proposition for the thieves became a very different matter.
Perry collected as much of the dust as he could—barely enough to cover half his thumbnail—and knotted it into a kerchief. Then he set about making his camp as comfortable as possible by spreading his groundsheet and propping his saddle against a rock for a back rest. He took off his boots and socks, extended his damp, cold feet towards the fire and poured a solid tot of rum into an enamel mug. He added water and sat back to sip the drink and gaze at the fire. His hip twinged and he did not expect to sleep well on the hard, flaky cave floor. When the fire and spirit had warmed and relaxed him, he took out the bread and meat and brewed tea. He added more rum to the tea and ate and drank slowly, allowing his thoughts to stray where they would.
Lincoln and one other. Who? Bracken, the 'legal man' from Melbourne? Very likely. The Jardwa used this cave to shelter from the weather, eat sleep and … what was it that girl had refrained from saying? Obviously—to make love. The cave was a trysting place. He began making notes in the pages he was devoting to Fanshawe and his nugget, squinted at the page as the fire died down, piled on more wood but was too tired to write a full account of his discoveries. Perry wrapped himself in his blanket and, as he drifted towards sleep, he thought not of the lush charms of Pauline Drewe, or the money Fanshawe had promised him and the progress he had made towards that goal, but of the dark eyes and flowing black hair of Sarah Braun.
As he prepared to leave the cave the next morning, Perry regretted that he had no talent for drawing. He would have liked to have brought something back from this place for Sarah Braun. He pledged himself to learn the secrets of photography and return here one day. He picked up his spent matches, brushed the dirt floor with a branch, flattened the ashes and tried to leave the cave in a relatively undisturbed condition. He rode hard through the morning, which was windy with intemittent rain. The flat landscape was bleak and colourless under a grey sky and, after a night of little sleep and that much disturbed by strange dreams, he had a sense of the country being haunted by the shades of the departed Jardwa.
Perry was thoroughly soaked by the time he reached Fanlock. Wind-driven, the constant and heavy afternoon rain had penetrated his poncho, dripped from his hat, and trickled down his neck. The horse had splashed through puddles and fast-running creeks and Perry was mud-splattered and shivering. He dismounted in the stable yard and led Jamaica inside to the comfort of oats
and a protective roof. Then he dashed across the muddy and disarranged garden to the house to pound impatiently on the door. Margaret Fanshawe's maid, who lived in mortal terror of people with dark skins, opened the door and waggled a finger at him. 'Not in those wet clothes you don't come in. Go to the back.'
Perry shucked his poncho and stamped the mud from his boots. He pushed past the maid and went into the house until he was standing in the tiled entrance hall. It was the first time he had been inside the house and he was impressed by its modest stylishness. The walls were wood-panelled and a staircase ahead of him was wide with an impressive curve and well-carved and polished rails and balustrades. Perry hung his hat and poncho on a mahogany stand. 'Tell Mr Fanshawe I have to see him. Now!'
The maid gathered her skirts and dashed up the stairs. Perry looked around him and found himself remembering his father's town house in Bridgetown. It was not altogether dissimilar, once the grandiose exterior had been penetrated. The same glowing surfaces on which labour was expended, the same carpet runner extending up the staircase. Henry Fanshawe appeared on the stairs and descended with an expression that became more severe with each step.
'Perry. Where the devil have you been? You've terrified Dorothy. What are you doing in here?'
Perry waited until the squatter had reached the bottom stair. He moved forward and carefully unknotted the slightly damp kerchief. The gold specks glistened on the tip of the finger he held up for Fanshawe to see. 'They cut the nugget up, Mr Fanshawe. I suspect into four pieces.'
Fanshawe's jaw dropped. 'Cut it up? They cut it up?'
'Yes.' Perry wiped his hands and the gold dust disappeared. 'Who is your legal representative in Melbourne?'
PART II
Daniel Bracken
11
Daniel Bracken was a native of Galway. His forefathers had all been fishermen, but his quickness with his figuring and lettering at the parish school led his mother to believe that through him she might realise her long-held and secret ambition (quite unfulfillable in the capacities of her other three sons) of being mother to a priest. Daniel had dutifully entered the seminary and diligently pursued his studies until one of his father's older brothers paid him a weekend visit. Sean Bracken had no time for the church or its officers and he believed he knew the remedy for sixteen-year-old piety. A respectable-looking man in broadcloth and well-shone shoes, he was given permission to take the novice to afternoon tea in the city.
Instead of tea rooms the uncle escorted the nephew to a public house and very quickly got him intoxicated. The next point of call was a back-street brothel where Sean paid for Daniel's induction into the pleasures of the flesh. The boy was still stunned by the sight and feel of a naked woman and still feeling the effects of alcohol when he sat down at a table in Timmy McEnroe's back parlour and watched the cards being dealt. As the fug cleared, he quickly seized on the elements of the game and after a couple of hands was dealt in, using money provided by his uncle as a stake. He lost it all, but not immediately, and had the thrill of almost carrying off a large pot.
As they walked back towards the seminary, Sean Bracken draped his heavy arm around his nephew's shoulders.
'Daniel, me boy,' he said, his brogue thick on words Bracken was to remember all his life, 'everything y've done for the past couple of hours has been a mortal sin in the eyes of the church.'
'I know.'
'And what part of it did y' enjoy the most?'
'I was fuddled by drink when I was with the woman. I'd have to say the cards.'
The uncle laughed. 'You showed a rare facility, it must be admitted. You're a lost soul, Daniel.'
'I am that,' the nephew said. 'Thank you, Uncle Sean.'
Within months, despite his father's curses and his mother's weeping, Bracken had left the seminary. He was now a confirmed sinner who would have been hard put to nominate which of his areas of sin he enjoyed the most. Briefly, he considered remaining within the church, conscious of the privileges and power that could be won by an ambitious and able priest. But the discipline already irked him and he had no taste for the abstractions of theology. He borrowed some money from his uncle and left for Dublin. In the late 1850s the countryside and towns were still recovering from the devastating effects of the famine, but Bracken saw no such distress in the capital. The bustling city captivated him and, almost overnight, he changed from a wide-eyed provincial to a knowing metropolitan.
Stocky, dark-haired and precocious, he looked older than his almost seventeen years and had no difficulty gaining admittance to taverns where men gathered to talk sport and business. Prompted by a lack of cash, he was a very quick learner. He discovered where money changed hands over games of cards and managed to get a seat at a couple of tables where, playing conservatively and drinking little, he put together a modest stake. He bought a new suit of clothes and carefully cultivated a fledgling, but convincing, moustache. The next time he presented himself at a card game he had a cloak to drape over the back of his chair, a cigar case to open and facial hair to stroke and twirl. He played with daring and flair and won close to £200.
For two years, Daniel Bracken found the sporting life of public houses, tobacco smoke, whiskey fumes, gambling and scented female flesh heady and satisfying. His tolerance for strong liquor was high and, as a shrewd and calculating card player, he seldom got up from the table without adding to his original investment. He also added to his wardrobe and moved into respectable rooms in Clontarf Road from where he could gaze out over the Irish Sea. After an initial period of riotous indulgence, from which he considered himself lucky to have escaped unscathed, he limited himself to brothels frequented by sporting medical men who guaranteed them pox-free.
Making his living and taking his pleasures at night gave him a great deal of free time during the day which he occupied by reading. He read Blackwood's Magazine, The Gentleman's Magazine and the novels of Scott, Dickens and Thackeray. The facility for Latin he had demonstrated as a student, plus the company of Continental whores, helped him to master French and Italian. He read Machiavelli, Rousseau and Voltaire. This literary diet whetted his appetite for conversation more stimulating than that of the sporting fraternity, with its endless discussions of prime clarets, prize-fight 'crosses', horse nobblings and pots won by stupendous bluff.
In 1861, to the great surprise of his many sporting acquaintances and a number of ladies in the demi-monde, all of whom thought him well past his majority, nineteen-year-old Daniel Bracken became an articled clerk in the firm of Matthiesson, Clancy & Burns, Barristers & Solicitors. He secured the post by the payment of £50 to the head clerk, an unlucky gambler, who conveyed only £30, the expected sum, to Laurence Clancy LLB, of Trinity College.
'You appear somewhat older than nineteen years, Mr Bracken,' Laurence Clancy said, 'But I'm afraid that the College requires that a guarantee be lodged by your legal guardians.'
Wordlessly, Bracken laid a copy of his baptismal certificate and a document duly witnessed by an officer of the Royal Bank of Ireland on the desk in front of the senior partner in the firm.
'I see. Well, that is entirely satisfactory, of course.' Clancy examined Bracken's letter of application. 'A Latin scholar, you claim? What d'you make of this, then? Qui male agit odit lucem.'
'The evil doer hates the light,' Bracken said.
'Salvo pudore, Mr Bracken.'
'I would always endeavour,' Bracken said, 'not to offend modesty.'
'Excellent,' Clancy exclaimed. 'Were it not for your clothes and moustache, I would say you had the look of the seminary about you. I trust you are a good Catholic?'
Primed by the head clerk, Bracken was aware that Clancy was a secret free-thinker. 'I am by way of being in a condition of inquiry, Mr Clancy. With my mind in no way closed.'
Laurence Clancy's sagging jowls tightened and his wrinkled right eyelid dropped in the ghost of a wink which Bracken chose to ignore. Terence Matthiesson, he knew, was a devout son of the church and Patrick Burns was an unknown quantity�
�it was no time to be forming alliances. Slightly discomfited, Clancy tidied the papers on his desk. 'An articled clerk has many onerous duties, Mr Bracken, and enlightenment, shall we say, seeps through rather than comes in a blinding flash.'
Bracken nodded.
'However, your obvious talents make the apprenticeship, if I may so style it, more interesting for you than for most. I … ah, take it you have no family connections with the law?'
'None, sir.'
'Looking ahead, where would you think of practising?' Clancy's eyes dropped to the certificate. 'In Galway, perhaps?'
Like his own rooms, the chambers were in Clontarf street with a view of the water. Bracken gazed out at the grey waves. 'I think not, sir. In London, maybe, or even in the colonies. I have a mind to travel.'
Clancy clucked enthusiastically as he packed his pipe. In over-crowded Ireland, no lawyer welcomed the prospect of competition, especially from a young man with fire in his eyes and a silk-lined cloak. He returned Bracken's certificate and placed the bank guarantee in a folder which he set aside for labelling. 'I trust I may place a record of your admission inside this folder in the fullness of time, Mr Bracken. You have a lot of work and study ahead of you. Goodbye to you for now, the head clerk will assign you your duties.'
So began three years of tedium mixed with moments of high excitement for Daniel Bracken. He quickly mastered the copying and filing work of the articled clerk and, equally rapidly, revealed to the solicitors that he was of more use and value in consultation with clients and other lawyers, in court and in government offices than in the menial routine work of chambers. With a focus for his energies, he read assiduously in the law, finding much of it dull and some of it fascinating. His retentive mind absorbed the necessary detail, precedents and arguments whether they engaged his imagination or not. His case summaries were models of clarity and precision; his flair showed itself in the uncovering of unusual rulings, aberrant judgments and eccentric findings which well-briefed counsel used to confound their opponents. Many a delighted barrister, knowing whence his victory came, slipped a few guineas to Bracken over and above the fees owing to Matthiesson, Clancy & Burns.
