The targets were lined up again. Again, brother and sister fired. Nessa held her breath. Philip’s target went flying, hers stood for a moment in time, then toppled over. The man looked, checked hers, then lifted both hands again. She took a breath. Nearly missed that one.
One more shot. Philip gave her a glance. They knew each other so well. He aimed, his gun pointed dead centre at the small branch of twigs. She lifted hers and aimed too.
Bang, bang. Two shots rang out. Up ahead, the man ran in but no one needed his call to know the result. Philip’s target was flattened. Nessa’s still stood. The man ran back.
“Brother, dead centre again. Sister, just to one side.”
Nessa turned to Philip. “Congratulations, brother.”
He pulled her into a hug. “Good shot, Sis,” he said quietly, “and thank you for not scaring these folks too much. Just enough for safety.”
Around her was a wild cheering. Then a call for drinks. One by one, they all came up and clapped her on the back, then hammered Philip’s too.
“As nice a show as we’ve seen for many a day.”
“And you say you carry that gun always, Missy? And it’s loaded? I sure ain’t about to mess with you none,” said another. Ted was nearby and watching.
“Not a good idea,” agreed Philip jovially. “Quiet as a lamb is my sister, usually. But get her annoyed and she’s likely to act first and think second.”
Ted moved quietly off, but couldn’t avoid the suddenly hard look in Philip’s eye. “And if she don’t get angry enough at anyone bothering her, then I surely would,” he added in a loud voice.
“Don’t worry, young fella, we get the message. Anyways, you be a friend of John Reid and the packers, hear tell. So if we didn’t get our backsides shot out by one of you two, the packers would soon hit our supplies. Ain’t no one going to mess with the young lady, are they, boys?”
It was a big man who spoke, an older miner from a claim up the river a bit. He looked round at the rest gathered there and the message was loud and clear. There was a general head nodding all around.
“Thank you,” said Philip. “Now, who’s for a drink?”
A hearty cheer rose as Tom pulled out the jugs, to be soon joined by jugs from the other camps.
“Time to go to your tent, Nessa,” said Philip quietly. “Don’t worry. They’re not in the mood for trouble, and I will be right outside.”
She looked carefully into his face. It hadn’t changed, or not much. He was still the young boy she had known always, still the pompous youth who had so precipitately ruined her Queenstown life but, beneath, something was changing. Her baby brother was growing up.
“Thank you,” she said as quietly. “And, Philip.”
“Yes.”
“Mother and Father would have been proud of you tonight.”
She was glad she had said it. The sudden glow on his face was reward enough. She slipped quietly into her tent, lying down fully dressed with her loaded pistol beside her. But tonight she felt safer than … almost as safe as the last night she had slept in John Reid’s stone cabin.
Chapter 10
John crested the rise. He had thought he could stay away, stupidly imagined he could finish his business here and go back home without seeing her. Lord knows he had been busy enough in the days since that last disastrous meeting. William Rees, the local run holder and now prosperous businessman, was an old friend. One of the first to settle this forbidding country, he was a good source of both stock and advice. John had made the most of both. Five good breeding rams would follow him home, and sound words on how to keep farming in the midst of the madness of a gold rush were lodged firmly in his head.
He was done now and ready for the long trail back to his own country. He came to the ford over the Shotover, was nearly heading home, when his horse’s head turned. He had no memory of his hands’ movements, could not remember their touch on the reins. They pulled the reins to the side, and his heels urged the horse on without any conscious thought from him.
His body knew better than his head, it seemed. He could not leave without seeing her.
She would not welcome him. That last look before she followed her brother said that. It was for her own good! So said the scornful part of him. And is she better off now? I don’t know, said the anguished reply. He let the horse plod on up the new path, urging him only slightly.
She was bending over when he arrived at her camp, her beautiful figure clearly evident to his greedy eye, even under the calico dress and petticoats. He drank her in. She was absorbed in her work, scrubbing at the clothes in the old bucket that served as wash tub, pummelling at the cloth. The ferocious movement rocked her lovely rear forward and back. He shifted uncomfortably in his saddle and was suddenly grateful she did not yet know he was there.
Then his horse stepped forward, striking a hoof on the shale. She swung sharply around, standing ready to repel an intruder, then recognised him. There was a dead silence. He no longer needed to fear embarrassment, his body sent into sharp retreat by the anger flaring in her face. He dismounted carefully, keeping his hands in front and making no threatening move.
“Good day to you, Miss Ward.”
“Mr Reid.” The barest of nods.
“It’s a fine day for the washing.”
“Yes.”
The stilted pleasantries of a well-brought-up lady. Never had they seemed more hateful.
“You are well?” he finally ventured.
“I thank you, yes.” She stepped back, behind the washtub, hands clutching the sides. “And you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re leaving?” she asked.
He nodded. “I’m on my way back to the run now. I just thought… That is, I wanted to be sure…”
She refused to help him, letting the silence stand.
“Your brother has provided adequately for you? You will be safe?”
“My brother has always cared for my well being and is well able to protect me.”
“Of course, good. But if you should need… That is, if ever you feel…” Why would the words not come? He gasped, needing air. “If ever you need anything, let the packers know. I will always come. That is a promise.”
“You have helped us more than enough already, sir. We cannot presume on your good will any longer.” She gripped the tub ever tighter, as if to a life line.
But she did not turn away. Nor did she move towards him, just stood there watching, looking like she would break apart if he dared so much as take a step closer. He could not do it to her.
“I will be on my way then. Give my regards to your brother and my good wishes in his fortune hunting. I hope you will see fit to call in to us on your way back to the coast, whatever the outcome. My home is always open to you. Always.”
He climbed slowly back on the horse, keeping her in sight the entire time. Only when the trail forced him to look away did he tear his eyes from her. She had not moved, a still, silent figure of breathtaking beauty and unbearable pain.
He had hurt her. Maybe he should be pleased to know he was important enough to her to be able to do that. Maybe. So why did he feel like his tongue was coated in cold ash and his life’s path had plummeted into a trackless waste?
That was the last she had seen him. Three long months had passed since that day, months that had changed her. Months of rootless wandering without an end she could see.
Tildie Fleming had warned her, as had the Major at the Arrow. “Your brother’s a drifter,” the Major had said. “I’ve seen enough miners to know one. Always dreaming of the big strike just over the hill. He’ll chase every new strike, that one.”
He had been right. “This field’s run out,” Philip would say, and she must pack everything and move on to the next field.
Would they ever go home to England? She straightened up from pummelling the clothes on the stony banks of the Manuherikia, the small river that ran beside their latest camp site. England. Home. Strange words. She had barely visited the
land of her birth, and had never known a place to call home. For her, home was family, being with the people she loved most. It had never been a place.
Then, unbidden, came the image of a cottage of solid cob walls set on a hillside of waving grasses.
She stamped her foot, brushed her gown briskly down to banish any stray grains of dust, banished the picture from her mind. She reached for the bucket of wet clothes, stomped back up the path and slapped them over the outcrop of rocks near her tent to dry. Work. Hard work. That’s what she needed.
That night, the look she had come to dread was back on Philip’s face—a combination of smiling anticipation and daring excitement.
“A man came through today. Says there’s good pay dirt on the other side of the Old Man Range. Campbell’s, they call the field. There’s colour in every wash, he reckons.”
Nessa had learnt not to argue. There was no point. “I’ll start packing tonight,” she said. “We can leave first thing.”
She had done this so many times before. Always, for Philip, there was a new, big strike. The names ran together in memory: Conways, Blacks, Tuckers—a few weeks at each, just enough to start making pay dirt, but no big strike. A man only had to tell a story of some mythical bonanza in a newly discovered valley and that look would come onto his face again.
Nessa had given up trying to start a business and kept her languages skills to herself these days. A curious listlessness had fallen over her, and Philip barely had to open his mouth now for Nessa to start packing.
That night, the other miners in this small place gathered at their tent. It was a very small settlement here. The Manuherikia River nearby yielded only enough for a miner to get by.
Nessa sat in the middle of the group. There were two other women, both married and one with a baby she cradled, rocking it in her arms. A hard place to raise a wee one, but the pervasive sense of hope that infected all who followed the gold lived here too. The young mother showed no concern at having to manage in such a rough place.
“One day, my Bob says, we’ll live in a mansion and have servants ’n all to do for us,” she would say brightly to Nessa as they both pounded their washing against the rocks of the stream. Nessa never had the heart to do other than nod and smile. She might think otherwise, but who was she to burst the girl’s dreams. Maybe she was even right.
Looking at her now, nursing her baby and laughing merrily at the jibing they were all giving Philip, Nessa had to smile. Suddenly, she could no more deny the mood of the place than any of those around their brightly dancing fire. Who knew? Maybe Philip would strike it big at last in this new field? Maybe they too would ‘live in a big house with servants ‘n all’, and she found herself laughing along with the rest.
She looked at her brother, studying him in the flickering light of the open fire in a way she had not done in a very long time. Philip took all the jibes, and gave back in equal measure, a wide grin on his face.
He was changing, was her little brother. Growing up, she supposed you called it. Looking at him now, she made herself see the man the others round the fire saw. A young miner from his drill trousers to the rough calico shirts and his work-roughened hands. He was clapping in time with the song started by Black Jimbo, the big rough Cornishman seated beside him. Jimbo worked hard, would fight hard if need be, but always kept a battered old fiddle nearby, pulling it out and breaking into song at the least excuse. A song of the Tuapeka he had started now, a song of mournful toil in the harsh life they led with so often no reward. But in Jimbo’s clever voice, the words took on a devil-may-care lilt, and one and all they joined with him. Fate may string you a poor wash, but that didn’t mean a man couldn’t laugh.
She watched Philip sing, his mouth open and joy on his face. In her heart, she knew no great fortune awaited him, or any of those sitting here. She had seen too much of the vast array of humanity that flocked to the gold in these last months. There were those who struck it rich and those who would always miss out. Too hasty, too lacking in will to keep on with the digging in a place that carried all the signs of gold, too eager to scratch the surface here, before leaping onto the next claim. Sure, there was luck in those who hit it big, but a man made his own luck too.
Deep down in a place she rarely dared to expose, she knew what she had lost in leaving Queenstown. A thriving town like that, still growing apace—there was more money for the taking there than in any of the hard gorges and dry river beds. Her business would have thrived. Her skill with languages was a sorely needed service here, and Philip had skills as well, a talent with weapons and words that had kept her safe in the Shotover gorge and so many other times. Together, said a bitterness deep in her heart, they could have earned all they needed to go home to England by now if they had stayed in Queenstown.
Then she saw her brother again. Saw the mixture of adult and child still in his face. Remembered the times the times he had come to her, tired and heart sick after yet another day’s useless toil, needing comfort and his big sister’s care. Her little boy still.
No, her path was set and regret stupid. She pushed it back down to that locked chamber deep in her soul.
There was another door there, set deeper still—a door she refused to open at all these days. Behind it was the face of a man and a name.
John.
The other side of The Old Man Range—that’s where this new field lay. John’s cottage was nestled on the northern slopes.
“Join with me, young Nessie,” called Jimbo.
She came to with a start and forced a smile to her face.
“The Old Identity,” whispered Nell beside her.
“Thank you,” she whispered back, and launched into Charles Thatcher’s ditty, her smooth contralto blending well with Jimbo’s deep voice.
And she found laughter in the mischief of Thatcher’s words. The songwriter had become the irreverent voice of the goldfields. No man in this new place had a right to anything other than what he bought with brain and brawn, uproaringly proclaimed the ditty. And woman, too, she told herself fiercely, setting her voice in counterpoint to Jimbo’s wild fiddling. Others won their reward here. Who was to say she should not?
A week later, they walked down the track, and she saw again John Reid’s house set solidly into the side of its hill. The late afternoon sun sent a long streak of hopeful gold along the path in front of them and left the track just at the point where the side path led off to his front door. A dog barked on a nearby hill and a voice called in the distance—the high, ‘chook chook’ yodel to call the hens into the evening roost. She said nothing. Something inside tugged painfully. It was only her heart, and she could let no trace of that seep into the outer world.
“We’d better call in and say hello to Mr Reid,” said Philip.
“He’ll be busy, settling the stock for the night.”
“Maybe, but we ought to pay our respects. The man was a good friend when we first came here.”
Her feet dragged. She hitched at her swag, tugging her shoulders down.
Philip turned, and frowned when he saw her lagging behind. “I thought you liked John Reid?”
She shrugged. “He’s a very kind gentleman,” she agreed.
Her brother was indeed growing up, and the look he gave her was too acute. “You said there was nothing between you.”
“There’s not,” she muttered.
“So nothing happened I need to know about?”
“No, no.”
The house was so near to the path. A few hundred yards only up the hill. Visitors and friends were a rare and precious occurrence here, and you did not pass by the house of a man you knew without calling in to say hello. Whether you were expected, or even whether or not you might be welcome. She followed Philip with every sign of pleasure and stood by his side as he knocked on the door. When no one answered, she could not have said whether she was relieved or sad.
“He’s probably still out on his land.”
Philip agreed, and they set back on their way to
the trail. But they had not gone far before a cheery hail stopped them.
“I thought it was you two. Mr and Miss Ward. Now what do you be doing back here?”
Nessa turned and saw a woman half-running down the road towards her, her bright cheeks blowing red with her endeavour.
“Mrs Cooper! How lovely to see you again.” This time, there was no doubt in Nessa’s mind. Ada Cooper’s advice had helped her survive this country more times than she could count. She could feel the smile growing on her face. “We were just passing through and thought to say hello to Mr Reid, but he is not home it seems.”
“No, up the far hill and won’t be back till tomorrow at the earliest.” Ada leaned over when she reached them, catching her breath. Then stood again, her smile of welcome as warm as ever. “Now, where do you think you are going this late in the day?”
“We’re on our way to the settlement at Chamonix for now, then off to the diggings at Potters,” said Philip.
“Then you’ll stop for a meal. Bob would be pleased to hear your news.”
“Thank you, but we must make Chamonix in time to find a place for the night,” said Nessa.
“You don’t want to go staying there. Not with all those rowdy packers and who knows what passing through. You come home with Ada for the night. You’ll get a proper home-cooked meal and a warm bed, which is more than that Chamonix can offer a decent body.”
Nessa knew Philip wanted to get on, but Ada Cooper had been too good a friend and would be hurt if they refused. And, truth be told, Nessa’s longing for the normality she offered was too big to hide. A few months ago, Philip wouldn’t have noticed, but today he thanked Mrs Cooper as graciously as Nessa could wish, and accepted her kind offer.
When they neared the Cooper’s home, the warm smells were so tempting that she saw Philip relax, forgetting his urge to get on. As for Nessa’s main worry, John Reid was away and they would be long gone before he returned.
It was a merry evening with the Cooper family. Ada switched between pumping them for news of their travels and exclaiming over all the small and funny tidings of the Cooper offspring, often both at the same time. It was a wonder Nessa and Philip got a word in. But the young Coopers were eager for blood-curdling tales of the fields.
Mary Brock Jones Page 12
