by JH Fletcher
‘None of this maybe business. I want to know. In case we have to come looking for you.’
‘Up the mountain,’ Jacqui said. ‘We thought we’d go and play in the forest.’
‘Take care, you hear?’
3
To Arthur, Judy said: ‘Should we let them?’
‘Why not?’
She loved him as dearly as ever — more, if that were possible — but sometimes his reluctance to become involved in things made her want to strangle him.
‘Because of Luke Shaughnessy.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about him.’
‘You don’t think he’d do anything?’
‘Not in a million years. Blokes like that, it’s talk rather than action. Always.’
She wished she could feel so sure. ‘I hope you’re right.’
‘I am. There’s another reason, in any case,’ Arthur said.
‘Which is?’
‘If we allow people like Luke to frighten us into not doing the things we want to do, it means we’ve let them beat us.’
‘We’re talking about two little children,’ Judy objected. ‘What chance would they have against someone like Luke Shaughnessy?’
‘Even little children have to live their lives. Them most of all.’ He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I really don’t see Luke as a problem, even if he knew where they were. Do we, incidentally?’
‘Jacqui was a bit vague. Deliberately so, I’d say. But she mentioned the mountain.’
He looked at her. ‘You don’t think she’s planning to go to the top, do you?’
‘I reckon she might.’
‘That damn rock … I should’ve done it myself, I suppose; that would’ve taken all the nonsense out of it. I’ve thought about it enough times but somehow it’s never happened.’
Arthur was not a man of action unless his emotions were involved, which took some doing, as Judy knew better than most. On the other hand he’d chased Luke off his verandah, no worries. She knew all about that, too, had stickybeaked on their conversation, if you could call it that. She’d almost cheered when Luke had gone belting off into the night. She remained uneasy, all the same; she feared that Luke was a man who believed in vengeance.
‘I don’t see even Luke doing anything to two little kids,’ Arthur said.
‘Sober, they’re about the only ones he would go for,’ she told him.
He tried to make a joke of it. ‘Maybe we’d better hope he’s drunk, then.’
‘Drunk, he’ll go for anyone.’
4
‘Where d’you two think you’re going?’ demanded Betty. ‘Heading straight into trouble, I know anything about it.’
‘It’s only a picnic.’
They had gone to see Frances and missed her. Betty was alone, with her prophecies of catastrophe.
‘Picnics cause troubles, same as anything else.’
As soon as they could they fled, while Betty’s portents of disaster rumbled like thunder: gonna get lost, gonna fall off a cliff, gonna break your necks, and the mountain opened its green arms to them in invitation.
Up into the forest, then, where the shadows drew close about them.
The air was different here and both of them felt it. For the first time they were alone upon the mountain, not simply to explore, but with the determination to get to the top. It was a challenge both to themselves and to the landscape of rocks, water and ferns that represented the mystery that Jacqui, at least, had come here to solve.
By midmorning they had reached the point where they had turned back before. From here on they would be on new ground. The mystery closed about them with the chilly tang of the cloud that now hung not far above them.
John pointed at it. ‘Get into that, we won’t see a thing.’
‘Don’t you start.’
But he was right. The tendrils of mist drifted through the tree ferns, resting on the lichen-flecked rocks, winding around the trunks of trees. The children climbed higher. The mist cuddled close about them. They sipped its cold breath and the world was grey.
‘Did you know it was going to be like this?’ Like his body, John’s voice appeared ghost-like amid the mist.
‘Of course I knew.’
But she had not. The mystery was here, all right, but whether she wanted to know about it she was now less sure. What was so wonderful about a spooky place that was so dark you could hardly see where you were going?
She was still thinking that it might all have been a mistake, that they should never have come up here at all, when the mist opened as though a curtain had been drawn back.
A glitter of sunlight; trees spangled with moisture as bright as diamonds; the vastness of the mountain’s flank plunging steeply into the distant trees.
The slanting rays of the sun pierced the lacy canopy of leaves. Everything was sparkling and alive; the water shone silver in the streams; creepers festooned the branches of the trees or hung in loops almost to the ground; birds flashed like gleams of red and green light.
They stopped, transfixed, and stared about them. It was wonder, yet more than wonder. It was something unlike anything either of them had seen before. The vegetation — bent trees with their heavy bark black with moisture, the delicate tracery of leaf and fern — was strange and mysterious, utterly different from what they were used to down on the hot plain.
‘The Realm of Ultimate Desire …’
John stared. ‘What?’
‘Frances called it that once.’
She had forgotten she had ever heard the words yet now, with the Cloud Forest all about them, they came back to her with the crystalline clarity of a bell ringing in the green light, uniting past and present, perhaps even the future, in this moment of wonder and delight.
She raised her hands as high as they would go and turned and turned, her eyes embracing everything about her.
‘The Realm of Ultimate Desire,’ she repeated, throwing the words exultantly into the trees and the shining air. She still wasn’t sure what the words meant, knew only that they sounded good, right. She turned eagerly to John. ‘It was worth coming up here, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?’
John was a bit lost with all this talk of realms and desires, was beginning to wonder if he’d ever known this girl at all. He jerked his head up the steep slope that might lead them eventually to the summit of the mountain, still so far away. ‘If we’re going to the top we’d better get on with it.’
But now Jacqui did not want to go further, not because she was afraid of what might lie ahead but because it seemed to her wrong to do so. That was the place of magic, the source of the mystery. Here they had come to an awareness of that magic, had felt it in the air about them, in the green and smiling trees. Here was close enough.
She wasn’t sure about saying that sort of thing. She wouldn’t be comfortable trying to put it into words. She was also afraid that doing so might make John think she was even more loopy than he probably did already.
‘We’d better go back,’ she said. ‘They’ll be after us if we’re late.’
All they needed was to have Betty, Frances, Judy, even Arthur trampling all over everything in search of them. And then to be chivvied and scolded down again … No.
She wondered about that. Those four people she loved more than anyone she knew, yet she didn’t want them here. What she had felt when the cloud opened around them had been so private and wonderful that she didn’t want to share it with anyone, was frightened that it might be damaged if she brought it into the light. The feeling tied her to the boy who had stood here a hundred years before and who must have felt as she did now. It was an odd thing to be so close to the past that you felt a part of it.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get moving.’
‘Maybe we’ll have a chance to look at that cave I spotted last time,’ John said.
She had forgotten about the cave he had found, or said he had found. If they had time, and if they could find it again, why shouldn’t they look at it? She quite fa
ncied the idea; like everything else about the day, it would be part of The Great Adventure that she had set her heart on and that had now been so gloriously fulfilled.
THIRTY-ONE
1
Luke Shaughnessy had had enough of mongrel work, so paid the quack a visit.
‘Me back’s that crook …’
It was an excuse that had stood him in good stead in the past.
The doc gave him a prod here and there; he said ow, ow, got two days off. Piece of cake.
‘See you,’ he said to the mill and headed for the pub.
Good place, the old Imperial. One or two of the regulars weren’t bad blokes either; a few of them had back problems, too. Johnno Hall, a hand at the local quarry, was one of them. He’d been born in Goorapilly, just like his dad and granddad, or so he said. Likely he was right; Johnno was a bloke with bananas growing out of his ears. Knew nothing about anywhere else, mind. Didn’t want to, come to that, but this district he knew inside out. He and Luke had cracked a fair number of bottles together since Luke had arrived in town, and now Johnno came across directly Luke walked through the door. They had a couple, then Johnno said:
‘Di’n’ you tell me you was a miner once?’
‘Gold miner. Still would be, if there was any justice.’
Johnno had heard the story before. ‘An’ now you got a shit hole of a job in a sugar mill.’
‘Darn right.’ Luke slurped his beer morosely.
‘There’s still gold around here, I reckon,’ said Johnno.
‘Yeah?’ Luke was less than impressed.
‘Dinkum. I remember me old dad sayin’ …’
But that, too, was an old tale.
‘You need a heap of money to open up a gold mine these days, even if you do find anything. Millions.’
‘Find Lasseter’s Reef and there’d be a quid or two in it, I suppose.’
‘Lasseter never come up here.’
‘Other people did.’
‘What you telling me?’
‘There’s an old working up the mountain somewhere. I remember me old dad saying there was a heap of gold still there.’
‘Why’d they pull out, if the gold was there?’
‘Search me.’
Didn’t sound terribly likely. On the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt to have a look.
‘Where’d you say this working was?’
2
The phone rang while Harley was in the shower. He turned off the water and grabbed the receiver.
‘Yeah?’
‘Warren.’
Harley’s heart jumped. He hopped out and fished a towel off the rail. Jamming the phone between ear and shoulder, he mopped himself as well as he could.
‘I’ve heard from Campbell,’ Warren said.
Harley tried not to sound too eager. ‘And?’
‘He likes it. We all know tourism’s down the gurgler at the moment but he thinks it won’t be long before it comes right again. Reckons a project like this could be just what the market needs — anything to do with the environment is flavour of the month, at the moment.’
‘So the finance is okay.’
‘No worries at all. They think it’ll be a real money-spinner. He wants us to get together as soon as possible.’
Whew.
For weeks Harley had been carrying a ton weight on his back. Now he stood tall once again. He drew a succession of deep breaths into his lungs.
‘Good news, eh?’
Warren’s laugh quaked over the wire. ‘Worried, were you?’
Worried sick, but he wasn’t going to admit it. Worries about finance had killed more projects than you could count.
‘Never on your life. I always knew it was a damn good scheme. I just want to see it operational, that’s all. As soon as possible.’
‘Amen to that.’
‘Planning permission?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘What if the State government wants to get in on the act?’
‘I said don’t worry about it. Money and jobs win votes, mate. That’s all they care about. A project like this, a resort up in the rainforest with all the proper infrastructure, will give them both. Should be worth a couple of seats to them, at least.’
‘So when should we get together?’
‘Let me grab my diary …’
While he waited, Harley, now as light as air, winked at his reflection in the mirror, snapping his fingers and jiggling this way and that. Harley Woodcock the jukebox king. He’d even thought of a name for the resort. No mention of Cloud Forest, of course: keep well away from that. Clouds meant rain. Kiss of death, in the tourist trade. No, something slick, the way he’d planned the resort would be. Rainforest Rendezvous, that was it.
Money-spinner was right. Handle it properly, they’d clear millions. Millions.
Warren came back to the phone. ‘How does tomorrow afternoon grab you?’
THIRTY-TWO
1
Jacqui had thought they would be lucky to find the cave that John claimed to have seen on their previous visit, but he took them right to it.
They studied the entrance. It was round and dark and silent. Now they were up close, Jacqui wasn’t sure she wanted to mess with it, after all.
‘It looks spooky.’
‘It’s a mine,’ John pointed out. ‘All mines look spooky.’
Which did not make this one any more inviting.
‘You too scared to come, you can wait out here. I’ll go in by myself.’
Scared or not, there was no way Jacqui would agree to that.
‘Come on, then …’
Like she hadn’t a care in the world. All the same, after they’d passed through the round and dripping entrance into the black dankness beyond, it was all she could do not to grab John’s hand. As it was, her heart was beating so loudly that she thought he was bound to hear it. Ten paces into the tunnel, they came to a dead end.
It was too dark to see much but their groping fingers told them there must have been a rockfall at some time in the past. Whenever it had happened, it had blocked the tunnel completely.
‘That’s it then,’ said John.
Back to the light, with John down in the dumps that his exciting cave had proved so lacking in excitement.
‘That tunnel’s got to carry on the other side of the fall.’ He was fierce about it, as though his finding the tunnel had been devalued by the blockage.
‘No way we could’ve got through it, though.’
Jacqui was happy to forget about it. She had hated the dark and gloomy place which might have concealed snakes, or spiders.
‘It would have been too dark to go much further in any case. We might have fallen down a shaft, anything.’
Who would have found them, if they had? No, she was very happy to be back in the light. They went on down the mountain. She cared nothing about the tunnel but the memory of those magical moments in the Cloud Forest accompanied her. It had been more than just the trees and ferns and sunlight. It had been everything, past and present.
They came out from the trees and walked across the paddock to the track. At the gate Jacqui paused and looked back at the mountain and the scarf of cloud that once again concealed its summit. She had found what she had been looking for. From the upper slopes of the mountain she had brought back an awareness of something precious that must not be lost but preserved forever. Deep inside herself she knew it, even though she did not know exactly what she knew.
‘Thank you,’ she said aloud to the mountain, the drift of cloud hanging white and shining against a brilliant sky. ‘Thank you, thank you.’
And so home, with the warmth of her discovery safe inside her heart.
2
Frances and Betty, chirping like sparrows.
Did you have a good time? Did you find anything interesting? Did you enjoy your lunch?
Betty acknowledged that they had somehow got away with their foolishness, once again, but kept on telling them it was only a matter
of time before something happened, any more of their nonsense and all of them would live to regret it.
‘We had a look at that tunnel,’ John said. ‘The one we told you about.’
Judy had told them to keep away from it. Jacqui glared at him; she might have guessed he’d be unable to keep his mouth shut. It could mean grief if Judy found out they’d disobeyed her.
As she had feared, the idea of a tunnel, with all the dangers of tunnels, awoke consternation. Where? What? You didn’t go inside it, I hope.
‘Not far,’ she told them quickly.
‘As far as we could,’ John said, apparently determined to fuel the fires of panic and alarm. ‘But the roof had come down. The tunnel was blocked.’
Which did nothing to ease their concerns. If the roof had not been down, the implication was clear: they would have gone further. And what might have happened then?
‘Accidents waiting to happen, that’s what you are,’ said Betty.
3
Luke decided he’d better go back to work after his two days off. It wouldn’t do to get the chop; he wasn’t sure how far he could rely on his brother to bail him out, if that happened. Hard work was another matter, of course. For the rest of the week he carried on as he always had, leaning on his broom, breaking into a frenzy of activity only when the foreman came around.
What Johnno Toms had told him about the abandoned workings continued to burn in his mind. Nothing to it, he told himself. All the same, once a miner, always a miner. There would be no harm sussing things out for himself.
The weekend came at last, thank God, and Luke thought he’d go up the mountain, see what he could see.
He wasn’t in top condition and the steep climb left him puffing like a train, but eventually he reached the trees. Finding an abandoned working was something else again: it could be anywhere. Mount Gang Gang wasn’t exactly Mount Everest but there was no such thing as a small mountain and there was a lot of ground to cover. Hard going, too: trees and frigging boulders everywhere. Country like this, a bloke could break a leg, easy as winking.
