Shadow of the Osprey

by Peter Watt

  Ben had taken a liking to Luke. He had an easy way about him that inspired confidence and it was not hard to see why his uncle Solomon spoke so highly of the Yankee. A couple of years back his uncle had told him how Luke was forced to flee the country because of some kind of treachery by a Rockhampton solicitor. But he would not elaborate and the subject was forgotten. And Jenny had shyly told him of how she had first met the American prospector on a Brisbane River wharf six years earlier. His generosity to her and her father was something that had touched her. The fact that he had reappeared in her life again made her feel as if everything would turn out well for Willie and herself in the future. It was like an omen.

  So if the American had been so important to Kate why was she now treating him as if he were a leper, Ben puzzled. He could only conclude – as had countless men past and present – that it was the mysterious and unfathomable nature of a woman to do so.

  Kate patted the dough into a flat cake. As she prepared the damper bread to be placed in the hot ashes to bake, she found herself gazing at Luke going about the task of hobbling the bullocks. Tall and lean with a face that reminded her of a noble eagle, Luke’s dark blue eyes always seemed to be seeing things beyond the distant horizons. His face was tanned and his long hair, shot with grey streaks, hung down to his shoulders. It was not a handsome face but one that spoke of gentleness backed by a toughness of a man others respected for his physical courage. The long scar inflicted by an English soldier’s bayonet had faded considerably with time but was still a reminder to the world of his stand at Eureka twenty years earlier.

  It was a face she had grown to love, Kate now grudgingly admitted to herself. Those same eyes that watched the distant horizons could suddenly brim with laughter, and his slow drawling voice filled her with a yearning to be held by him. Strong, gentle, funny, intelligent and caring, she thought, when she put words to what she loved about him.

  But he was also impulsive, foolhardy and a born drifter. Dangerous and lonely enterprises guided him in his perpetual search for gold and he seemed to have little in the way of ambition to settle down. He was everything a woman should avoid.

  As Luke strode towards her, his saddle over his shoulder and trailing his rifle, Kate looked away. She did not want him to see the love in her eyes.

  ‘Can I do something Kate?’ he asked gently as he settled his saddle and rifle beside the fire.

  ‘I have gone this long without a man’s help,’ she replied. Luke flinched. Without a word he picked up his rifle and saddle and walked away.

  Kate bit her lip. She didn’t mean it that way! Why was it that she could not tell him of her love? The word ‘defence’ echoed as a bitter self-recrimination. She had a need to defend her feelings against the pain of him leaving her life – as others had – forever.

  Kate’s wagons rumbled into Cooktown, the big wheels creaking and groaning along Charlotte Street. They passed the numerous bawdy houses and hotels that had sprung up on the banks of the Endeavour River to cater to the appetite and thirsts of those who had come in search of a dream. But despite the sordid reputation of the boom town, Kate felt that she had arrived home.

  Dust rose in a permanent cloud, finely coating all who ventured onto the main street. A babble of accents merged into an excited din of sound; the guttural accents of the Nordic visitors mingled with the sing-song voices of the Asian miners, the brogue of Scots and the twang of Americans.

  Ships of every nation were anchored in the river just off the main street, having disgorged their cargoes upon arrival in Australia’s far north. The ships were as crowded as the crush of humanity on the shore; coastal steamers, Chinese junks and small sailing ships competed for anchorage in the muddy brown waters that ran into the opal-like Coral Sea.

  Luke, leading his horse, strode beside Kate down the busy street. Ben, Jennifer and young Willie followed, trudging beside the second of Kate’s wagons. Through this melting pot of humanity the big wagons rolled until they neared the depot where Kate handed over control of her wagon to Luke. She had led her little band of travellers to the depot that stored the precious goods of the frontier: shovels, picks, gold cradles, candles, tinned meat, nails, kerosene, cloth, canvas tents, medicines, tobacco, tea, coffee, rice, sugar and flour. ‘I have something to do before I arrive at my store,’ she said mysteriously.

  ‘Kate, there is something I should tell you,’ Luke said, with a stricken expression clearly stamped on his face. Kate returned his expression with one of puzzlement. She had never seen him express such pain before. He had always been a man who kept his feelings very much to himself. ‘I really came back because I wanted to see you again.’ She could see that he was groping for words and sensed in his simple statements a great depth of feeling. ‘I love you Kate. I always have. For what it’s worth.’

  She gently touched his face with her fingers, and turned to walk away without a word. This was not the time to deal with their feelings for each other. Now she must go in search of a place she knew she must visit before she could find peace in her life.

  Finding her husband’s final resting place had been difficult. There were so many freshly dug graves around Cooktown with little to mark who lay beneath the earthen mounds. But luck was on her side when she caught sight of a young woman placing a posy of wildflowers on one of the graves.

  The young woman had a face aged by her profession and a pallid complexion indicating that she rarely saw the daylight hours. She was pretty, in a hard way, and Kate felt that the woman would have been attractive to a man like her husband. The young woman stared down at the unmarked grave. There were no tears, only an expression of regret when she glanced up at Kate.

  ‘I’m looking for the grave of someone I once knew,’ Kate said gently. ‘A man called Kevin O’Keefe.’

  The woman glared. There was hostility and resentment in her darkly shadowed eyes. ‘You know him too?’ she sniffed angrily. ‘Not altogether surprised. The big bastard had an eye for pretty women.’ She glanced down at the grave and a tear splashed from her eye. ‘That’s him there,’ she said, indicating the grave at her feet. ‘Stupid bastard got himself killed.’ The woman choked and could not continue her grief-stricken tirade.

  Kate guessed that she was the woman John Wong had said her husband had got himself killed over and felt an empathy for the woman who had made the fatal mistake of falling for Kevin O’Keefe’s charm just as she had all those years earlier. She felt no animosity towards her, only a deep sadness that Kevin’s life had come to nothing more than this unmarked grave on the Queensland frontier.

  She walked away, leaving the young woman to grieve for the handsome and charming rogue, knowing she would never return to visit the site again. It belonged to the other woman who wept openly for him as she could not. It was time to go to the depot that was her home and be with the living.

  The interior of the depot felt cool after the weeks toiling with the bullock teams. Kate sat on a bale of hay in her store reflecting on the visit to her husband’s grave. She found her thoughts drifting to Luke, the Cohens and the Jameses who had all become so much a part of her existence and wondered what she would do without them. The loss of any one of the people who had come to share her life since that fateful day she had stepped ashore at Rockhampton – eleven long years past – would have been a loss greater than that of the man she had married. Had time hardened her against her past? Or was it that she had nothing in common with the girl she had once been?

  She gazed at Emma James who had greeted her with an outpouring of unabashed joy for her safe return. She felt a touch of envy for Emma’s wonderful life with Henry. They may have had little in the way of money but Emma had her husband’s gentle love.

  When Henry was discharged on medical grounds from the Native Mounted Police, he and Emma had accepted an offer to work for Kate managing the Cooktown depot. The depot was used for the storage of goods to be hauled down to the Palmer River and out to the homesteads of the squatters, as well as to the little towns springi
ng up in the hills and on the plains of North Queensland.

  The rush to the Palmer had stripped Kate of teamsters to work with her small fleet of wagons but she had been able to recruit Ben back to her business, even though she knew he had intended to try his luck on the fields. Ben gave up his ambitions to make his fortune prospecting, his unstinting loyalty ensuring that she continued to build on her fortune. But it was a fortune tied up in capital investment: land, wagons, cattle, mining shares and a string of supply depots. Her business enterprises now overlapped with those of the Cohens who had expanded into hotels and even shares in enterprises in Sydney and Brisbane. The informal partnership proved extremely profitable for Kate and the Cohens and was firmly established on nothing more than a handshake of trust.

  Emma reached over and touched Kate’s hand. It was a familiar gesture between them and she returned the gentle gesture with a weary smile. ‘I will be all right Em,’ Kate said. ‘The trip back was a little rough.’

  Emma worried for her friend who drove her self so hard. There was not a bad bone in the woman, she thought with a sigh. Her only fault was that she worked like a man and denied the woman in her. Kate’s once flawless pale skin was now tanned to a golden hue and her hands were callused from the tough, physically demanding work of handling the bullock teams. But the gruelling work could not dim the beauty of her grey eyes which burned with an intensity touching all around her with their light. Emma could see that she was depressed about all that had happened in the last few days. ‘Your husband came here a couple of weeks ago,’ Emma said. ‘He said he would catch up with you when you returned.’

  ‘Instead I caught up with him,’ Kate replied wearily, as she stretched her long legs and reflected on her visit to Kevin’s grave.

  ‘The children missed you,’ Emma said, by way of letting her know that there were people who needed her. ‘Sarah in particular,’ she added.

  At eight years Sarah seemed already a young woman with her own mind. Although she played rough and rowdy games with her older brothers Tim and Peter, she was a serious young lady, with big brown eyes and a pert nose. And she idolised her aunt Kate and followed her whenever she could.

  Life had not been easy for the children. To many of the white children they were ‘darkies’, and Kate’s three adopted charges found themselves cruelly isolated in the town.

  Young Gordon James proved the exception. The son of Henry and Emma, he was a constant companion of the three Duffy children. So when Kate had moved temporarily to Cooktown to oversee the hauling of stores to the Palmer, she had brought the three children with her, rather than leave them in the care of a stranger. All three had inherited much of their father’s rebelliousness, which had brought about the resignation of more than one nanny.

  Of the three children Peter proved to be the most difficult. He preferred to roam the bush and often camped with the wandering Aboriginals on the outskirts of the town. He was growing fast and already showed the promise of his father’s muscled build.

  Gordon was only nine but big for his age. Often he would disappear with his best friend Peter to go bush where the two lived the life of the Aboriginals who accepted the boys into their nomadic life. The Aboriginal men taught both boys the skills of the bush. Gordon was a quick learner and better at tracking than Peter. Little Sarah secretly adored him. Indeed, she knew, even at her tender age, that she would always love the son of Henry and Emma James.

  The news that her aunt Kate was home had reached Sarah. She ran all the way to the store, wearing a dress covered in dirt from the rough games the boys played. She burst in. ‘Aunt Kate, Peter and Gordon have run away again,’ she said breathlessly, as she gave her aunt a crushing hug.

  ‘Stop telling tales on your brother, Sarah,’ Kate said with a gentle squeeze. Kate was not concerned about the disappearance of the two boys. They always came back after a couple of days. Or, if not, Henry would track them down and bring them back by the scruff of their necks. Besides, they rarely went any further than the Aboriginal camps just outside of town. ‘Where is Henry?’ Kate asked Emma. She had not seen him at the store.

  ‘He’s gone off to see someone about a prospecting job or something like that,’ she replied with a worried expression. ‘At least that is what he told me.’

  ‘He is finding it hard to work in the store?’ Kate asked sympathetically.

  ‘He misses the bush so much Kate. He misses all the excitement of his days with the police. But he does not miss the work he did for that horrid and evil Lieutenant Mort. Henry is like a man haunted,’ Emma added with a frown. ‘He lives with a terrible guilt for what he has done to the Aborigines on the dispersals. He is not a bad man. Just a man who feels that he did bad things in the name of the law. I do not understand it but he loves the bush out there and wants to return to his days roaming the tracks. But I know you need him here to help out and I feel guilty that my husband would even think about deserting you for a job in the bush.’

  Kate gave her friend a reassuring smile. Both women knew it was really Emma who did most of the work around the depot when Kate was out with the bullock team, even though Henry was useful when he was needed. ‘I think I know how he feels Em,’ Kate said as she remembered her experiences on the track. ‘There is something beautiful out there which you have to experience to understand.’ How could she put into words the majesty of freedom on the track. Sure there was danger. But there was danger in the almost lawless frontier town on the Endeavour River. ‘Did he say what he was going to do?’ she asked out of a sense of curiosity.

  ‘No. He just looks for jobs that his past experience might suit,’ Emma replied.

  Kate shrugged. She wondered how he would cope with his almost crippled leg if he did get a job back in the bush. The old war injury had grown worse with the passing of the years and gave him a lot of pain. But he rarely let on about his suffering from the shrapnel wound. She could see that Emma was worried and hoped that Henry would not get the job back in the bush for Emma’s sake. Knowing Henry as Kate did, she surmised that there would have to be an element of danger to get his interest.

  ‘I think I will attend to the correspondence before I wash and change,’ Kate said, as she stroked Sarah’s long dark hair with her fingers. ‘Then I can go and sleep on a real bed.’

  She heaved herself wearily off the bale of cloth and stretched. The trauma of the last few days had taken a greater toll on her reserves of strength than she had admitted to herself. But she had reason to smile when she remembered that Luke had come back into her life. It was still like some wonderful dream.

  The smile turned to a frown however as she allowed a doubt to creep into her thoughts. There was a nagging question that neither had resolved as they had walked side by side with the big wagons. Luke had said so little, but she had sensed a tension in him that she could not reach. And yet when the sun was gone from the tropical skies they had sat together discussing little other than the events that had transpired in their lives. Why did it have to be so difficult? Why was it that neither seemed to be able to reach out without the fear of failure? For now she would attend to the mundane business of running a company and put aside thoughts of him.

  She found a pile of correspondence Emma had placed in an old chocolate box kept under the counter and wearily shuffled the piles of invoices and receipts looking for personal letters. She found two. One was from Sydney and she recognised her cousin Daniel’s handwriting. The other was from Hugh Darlington. She was surprised to find a letter from Hugh and opened his letter first. She read it and groaned. It was not possible, but it had happened. Another blow! This time it was financial.

  Despite his past betrayal of her trust she had re-employed Hugh’s law firm to handle her legal matters after the death of Sir Donald Macintosh. Better the devil she knew, she had rationalised at the time. He was after all the best in his business on the northern frontier. But now, as she stared at the contents of the letter she wondered if she had not made a huge mistake in her decision to hire him
once again. What else could go wrong? According to his letter her former lover would be in Cooktown within a fortnight. When she glanced at the date on the letter she realised he was already in town. She hoped Luke was not aware of her past relationship with the suave Rockhampton lawyer.

  TWELVE

  Detective Kingsley’s meeting with Lady Enid Macintosh proved to be interesting. He was served cucumber sandwiches as he sat in the parlour of the great mansion overlooking the harbour.

  Lady Enid was all that the detective imagined a titled lady would be – and he had to admit that she was a beautiful woman for one he guessed must be in her fifties. Her flawless skin was unwrinkled and her jet dark hair only beginning to show the grey streaks of time. But it was her striking large emerald green eyes that he noticed above all her features.

  She was aloof but polite to the likes of himself. He was pleased to see the faintest crack in the obvious contempt she had for mere working class police detectives when he related how Horton had told him that her son-in-law Granville White was behind the death of her son David Macintosh years earlier.

  Before he died Horton had managed to tell him of how Mort had left David on the beach to be butchered by the natives and that the Osprey captain had once had a conversation with Granville White about what might happen to David Macintosh on such a trip. Lady Enid’s son-in-law had hinted heavily too that any ‘accident’ would not be held against the captain of the Osprey.

  Horton also mentioned that Granville White had hired him and his half-brother to kill an Irishman by the name of Michael Duffy. But Duffy had instead killed Horton’s brother in self-defence.

  Enid interrupted the detective. Michael Duffy was dead, killed in the war against the New Zealand Maoris. So the information that Horton had confessed to Duffy’s innocence was of no value. Unfortunately Kingsley had not corroborated the confession with a witness and it would come down to only his word in any court of law. Kingsley himself did not know of the Duffy case but guessed that the records would probably be held by the Darlinghurst police.