Shadow of the Osprey

by Peter Watt

  Some time during the night Harry collapsed as he wandered aimlessly under the canvas of the southern constellations. He lay on the cooling earth, whimpering his fear and despair. All the horror that was the northern frontier surrounded him in the night.

  He and Frank had been good mates who had left the southern city of Melbourne to seek their fortune on the northern goldfields. Out of luck as latecomers to the Palmer, they had set out to claim from the land what they felt it owed them. But they were not men born of the bush. The vast and lonely spaces were as alien to them as the city would have been to Wallarie. The frontier was a place of horrors. And the greatest horror of all was the loneliness of the vast land. For Harry true hell was dying alone and never being found.

  TWENTY-TWO

  French Charley’s stood out in Cooktown as an elegant and sophisticated place of entertainment. An oasis in a desert of uncouth and bawdy outlets of diversion for the frontiersmen.

  It was rumoured that the proprietor, Monsieur Charles Bouel, was in Cooktown to avoid ‘Madame Guillotine’, for one reason or another. Those who could afford to patronise his establishment cared little for the Frenchman’s past transgressions. They came for the excellent food and wines, the lavish entertainment and the prettiest girls in the north. French Charley’s was by far the best restaurant in Queensland’s north. Well-travelled gourmets and raconteurs said it was by far the best in all of the Australian colonies.

  Monsieur Bouel was said to have tutored his girls in the French accent and to dance the notorious cancan. The imported furnishings that decorated the palace of pleasure gave the visitor the illusion of being in the best of continental parlours. And it was to French Charley’s that Hugh Darlington had invited Kate to dine whilst he was visiting from Rockhampton.

  Kate dressed appropriately for the supper engagement at the elegant restaurant. Gone was the grubby teamster who had worn moleskin trousers. Now the beautiful young woman appeared wearing the latest in bustle designs from England.

  When she swept into the restaurant as regally as visiting royalty, her extraordinary beauty turned the heads of the bearded miners. She was escorted by no less than Monsieur Bouel himself who met her at the front entrance. He was renowned for attending personally to those up on their luck and who therefore could afford to wine and dine at his salubrious establishment.

  The French proprietor was impressed by the young woman, not only on account of her famed beauty but also her reputation as an astute businesswoman. Although Kate could easily afford to dine at the restaurant every night, it was not normally a place a single woman would go, unless she was looking for a job entertaining the wealthier miners, a job of helping them dispose of the weight of their gold in their pockets when their trousers came down.

  Kate swept across the room with all the grace and dignity of one born to command the attention of all those around her. She knew that her entrance had turned heads. She also knew her beauty had brought on the glowering looks from the painted ladies who sat with the bearded miners. But Monsieur Bouel’s ladies consoled themselves with the knowledge that the famous Kate O’Keefe was not in competition with them for the attention of their temporary beaus.

  Hugh Darlington felt a painful pang of regret for the fact that he had let the beautiful woman slip from his life. A handsome man in his mid-thirties, his delicate hands and patrician appearance bespoke of a cultured man, so different from the rough and ready miners around him. Cooktown was not a place he would have normally visited. He was only in town to represent a powerful mining company which was preparing to buy out mining leases for future deep mining operations on the Palmer.

  He rose to his feet as Kate was escorted to the table. They had parted as lovers five years earlier and their parting had been fiery. But business dealings put them in contact again when they had met in his Rockhampton office to discuss the purchase of the Balaclava Station adjoining Glen View. Bostock’s next of kin in England wanted the property sold and so Kate had made a generous offer to buy the property. But their meeting had been purely professional and cool. Kate would never forgive him for his betrayal of her trust. He had inadvertently exposed his true allegiance to the wealthy Macintosh clan, not for any sentimental reason, but one based on the lawyer’s nose for money and power. He had seriously underestimated the determination of the young woman to successfully forge her own financial empire. Her continuing distrust of him had been very apparent, by the fact that he had been in Cooktown many weeks without her attempting to contact him – until now.

  ‘Kate, you are even more beautiful than when I first met you,’ Hugh said gallantly as he brushed her hand with a kiss. She smiled and thanked him for his courtesy. Monsieur Bouel pulled out her chair for her. ‘I took the liberty of ordering for us just before you arrived,’ Hugh said. ‘I only hope your tastes in food have not changed as, alas, your feelings may have towards me.’

  ‘Times change and so do we Hugh,’ Kate replied looking him straight in the eye.

  ‘Sadly for us both the changes are irreversible.’ The lawyer smiled pensively. At least her attitude to the irreversibility of their past torrid relationship in Rockhampton made it easier for what he must do this evening. ‘Whatever it must be Kate,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I only wish things had been different. But you chose to follow your path.’

  Kate could see that he was still as handsome and charming as ever. The tiny fear that she may allow herself to remember the old yearnings she once had for him, niggled at her. But that had been six years earlier, she reminded herself, and much had happened since then to sweep away any fond memories.

  An immaculately dressed waiter hovered diffidently nearby holding a napkin-wrapped bottle of champagne. Hugh signalled to the waiter, who poured the wine with a stylish flourish. ‘I have ordered a local fish with oyster sauce and vegetables in season,’ Hugh said, as Kate sipped from her glass. ‘To be followed by fresh fruit and mocha.’

  She was impressed by his choice of food and wine. ‘It all sounds very nice,’ she commented pleasantly. ‘At least we have something we can enjoy together before you raise the reason of why I am here.’

  The lawyer shifted uncomfortably. ‘Ah, yes. I am afraid what I have to tell you may spoil your appetite,’ he said. ‘So we should leave business until the coffee arrives. What do you think?’

  Kate considered his proposal. But after weeks on the rugged and perilous track to the Palmer, anything he had to say could not be half as threatening. ‘No. I think you should tell me now what your business with me is. I doubt that whatever you have to say could spoil my appetite.’

  He coughed lightly and took a deep breath. ‘Kate, I must tell you that you should consider selling Balaclava Station. The Macintosh companies are not happy that you own property adjoining theirs.’

  ‘Is that all?’ she replied serenely, as it was of little concern what the Macintoshes thought of her. She was at war with them and the fact that her ownership of Balaclava was unsettling pleased her.

  ‘No. I’m afraid I must also insist that you repay me the money I loaned to help you get started. With appropriate interest accrued since ’68,’ he added self-consciously. He was uncomfortable asking her for the money which was not in fact his. But Hugh had aspirations beyond those of a country solicitor. He needed every penny he could put his hands on to further his campaign for a seat in the colony’s parliament. But the so-called loan to Kate was Luke Tracy’s money, entrusted to the Rockhampton lawyer who was acting at the time in Kate’s legal affairs. Luke had insisted that Kate not be told the source of the money. His strong male pride prevented him from revealing himself as the source; he felt Kate might interpret his generous gesture as an attempt to buy her love. But the unscrupulous lawyer had capitalised on the secrecy. Darlington feigned to be the source of the money, casting himself in the light of one who truly cared for her. At the time the lie had worked to help cement her feelings for him.

  Kate felt her anger rising. ‘You told me the loan was given interest-free,�
� she said in a carefully controlled voice. ‘Now you make me feel as if the money was only an inducement to get me to go to your bed. Do you know how that makes me feel?’ Her voice rose angrily. ‘You have made me no different from the women sitting around us now,’ she said savagely, as she cast her gaze at a table where a pretty young red-haired girl was making a point of allowing the miner dining with her to see her milk-white breasts exposed above the low-cut dress.

  ‘It is not like that Kate,’ he pleaded. He was embarrassed by the attention being turned on them by the diners. ‘At the time things were different. You must have known that.’

  She turned her attention back to Hugh who nervously toyed with his crystal champagne flute. ‘What if I refuse to pay interest?’ she demanded. ‘Oh, I always knew the principal would be due. But this matter of interest was never mentioned. Your letter only said that you wanted to discuss the return of an amount of money. I thought you meant some outstanding fees.’

  ‘You do not have much choice,’ Hugh replied menacingly. ‘If you refuse I will take action. And you cannot win against me Kate. I am a lawyer and I know the law.’

  ‘You bastard!’ she hissed, her aspersion on Darlington’s parentage not missed by a grinning miner at the next table. He knew Kate O’Keefe from his time on the Palmer. He had a healthy respect for the woman who could manage a bullock wagon along the dangerous track to the goldfields. He almost felt sorry for the man she cursed.

  Hugh glanced around, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. He now bitterly regretted choosing French Charley’s. It was all turning sour on him! ‘Kate, I don’t think this calls for a situation,’ he pleaded. ‘We are talking business and I know you understand business. I doubt that the interest will send your company broke. You forget, I know your financial situation.’

  Kate glared at the man she had once thought so desirable. She wondered how she could have ever found the slimy lawyer attractive. ‘Then you know that my money is tied up in the Eureka company,’ she replied quietly. ‘Cash is something I cannot readily obtain at the moment.’

  ‘That is your concern,’ Hugh said bluntly. ‘I can give you two weeks to come up with the money and the interest. If you don’t I will be forced to put you before a court.’

  Before Kate could reply the waiter returned to ask politely if they were ready to dine. Hugh said that they were. He hoped that she might be more reasonable on a full stomach. As the waiter retreated a stony silence fell between the two.

  The waiter returned shortly bearing a large red emperor fish which swam in a sea of dark, salty oyster sauce on a silver platter. The baked fish was surrounded with tiny boiled potatoes and fresh vegetables steamed with a delicious touch of ginger. But the delicious aroma of the steam rising from the rich platter did not stimulate Kate’s appetite.

  ‘You will get your money,’ Kate said, not attempting to conceal her anger. ‘Is that all you have to tell me?’ she added.

  ‘Ah, no . . . ’ Hugh said, as he sliced a section of succulent white flesh from the fish. ‘I have some advice for you. Advice that I pray you will take with the good intentions that I give it.’

  ‘Tell me, and I will decide,’ she replied, watching him pile the fish on his plate and wondering at his appetite.

  ‘If you wish to be accepted by your peers in Queensland, I suggest that you make a break with your business partners, the Cohens. It does not bide well with certain powerful people in the colony that you have a strong association with the Jews. I say this to you as a friend.’

  Kate was aghast at the man’s condemnation of the two people with whom she partly shared her financial empire. Solomon and Judith Cohen’s business association went beyond a mutual convenience. It went beyond even simple friendship. They were as close to her as her own family in Sydney.

  ‘I will tell you something Mister Darlington,’ she said, her angry voice carrying beyond the nearest tables as she rose with the half-filled champagne flute in her hand. ‘I owe my very life to the love and care those Jews as you call them granted to me when I first came to Queensland. If it had not been for the Cohens I might be long dead by now. And in many ways, I owe my considerable financial success to their considerate counsel, in the management of the Eureka company.’ Kate paused for a split second and a colourful curse she had once heard Luke mutter came easily to her lips. ‘You are nothing more than a goddamned flea on the back of a hog, you slimy bastard.’

  The lawyer was too slow to react to the champagne flute shattering on the table. Champagne spattered him in an exploding shower of crystal. A cheer rose from the tough miners who had followed the beautiful young woman’s rising anger with interest. ‘Good on yer girlie,’ came the chorus from them. They had little time for the likes of Hugh Darlington, who they viewed as one of the uppity townsmen living soft and protected lives, far from their own physical and dangerous lives.

  Hugh hung his head in acute embarrassment. Kate had humiliated him in public and he would not forget. No, he would not forget.

  Kate swished from the restaurant, pushing past the French proprietor who gallantly promised that Monsieur Darlington would be barred from his establishment. No-one could be forgiven for upsetting the legendary Kate O’Keefe. She appreciated the Frenchman’s chivalrous gesture. At least in the north of the colony she had more standing than the lawyer. North Queensland was her country!

  The evening air was cooling to Kate’s angry, flushed face as she strode along the busy street. Big wagons headed for the Palmer track rumbled past her while men, drunk with liquor and new-found wealth called to the beautiful young woman, with invitations to share their money and their bed. At least their motivations were forthright, she thought bitterly as she walked deep in thought along Charlotte Street to her store.

  Kate reflected on how much more she was a part of the frontier than she would ever be in polite and genteel society. Her troubled reflections drifted to the only two men who had shared her bed. Both had proved to be worthless. First, there had been Kevin, her husband, who had sworn a life of fidelity. A promise which he broke in just under six months of marriage. And then came Hugh Darlington. She had been seduced by his handsome looks and polished manners. This same man, only moments earlier, had promised to put her before a court of law.

  She scowled at the memory of the two men. Men were useless creatures! But she wavered in her attack on all men when she remembered the men of her family – and Luke Tracy. She slowed her pace as she reflected on the American’s meaning to her life. He had never taken from her. Luke had only ever given of himself without asking anything in return – and he had been with her when she needed him most. But he was a restless and roaming spirit, shifting like the tropical breezes. Could such a man ever be content to settle in one place?

  Luke had a fierce, infuriatingly stubborn male pride that had inevitably surfaced. He had returned to her a day after her offer to bankroll a prospecting expedition to Ironstone Mountain and expressed his reluctance to allow her to fund him. She had protested but he quietly told her he had made a serious mistake in accepting her more than generous offer. He had told her he had money and it was just a matter of getting it back. But the whereabouts of that money remained a mystery to Kate as he had changed the subject.

  The strong and independent woman stopped and sighed. She realised that she might turn the old dog of the track into a lap dog. Old dog! She smiled to herself. Yes, he was like an old dog – faithful, scarred, protective and loving. But like an old dog he had a bad habit of wandering. Was his talk of settling down a feeble attempt to convince her he was finally prepared to stay in one place? Or would he become like Henry James, and yearn for the days in the saddle, riding the long and lonely tracks of the frontier?

  Henry was carrying out a routine check on the store when he found Kate sitting alone in the dark. As he held up the lantern she wiped away a tear. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’ he asked in his concern.

  ‘Thank you Henry,’ she replied with a sniff. ‘I was just about to leave.’


  ‘Bad night?’ Henry asked, sitting down beside her on a keg of nails.

  ‘Bad life more like it,’ she answered with a short and bitter laugh.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ he said, trying to cheer her up. ‘Look at what you have achieved in the space of a mere six years. You have one of the most prosperous businesses in Queensland. Enough money that you never need work again. And a lot of friends in this part of the world.’

  ‘I know. But there are things money cannot buy,’ Kate said sadly, touching him on the arm. ‘I’ve learned that now. You know Henry, I have always envied you and Emma for all that you have together.’

  ‘Not a real lot,’ he shrugged. ‘The bloody police pension doesn’t go far. Emma and I appreciate what you have done for us with this job.’

  ‘It’s not charity,’ Kate quickly remonstrated. ‘You both work very hard. And I don’t know what I would have done without your help. You and Emma have been wonderful.’ She appreciated his concern for her and remembered the conversation she had with Emma about Henry being restless in his present employment at the store. Even now she sensed that he was just a little uncomfortable in her company. ‘I heard from Emma that you have applied for a job working for that American that I have heard so much of around town. I just want you to know that I understand and don’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t know for sure whether I’ve got the job yet,’ Henry mumbled, feeling just a little guilty for applying for the job. ‘O’Flynn told me he had to get final approval before I was in.’

  ‘I have to admit that I hope you don’t get it,’ Kate said gently. ‘From what I’ve heard of this Mister O’Flynn, he is not a very reputable kind of character. The word around Cooktown is that he is recruiting for a very dangerous expedition to God knows where! If anything were to happen to you . . . you know Emma and Gordon would be devastated. No, Henry. You left all that kind of thing behind when you left the Native Mounted Police.’