Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (20 page)

When they saw him, they rose hesitantly, then pointed at him chattering in excited voices with consternation on their dark faces. Wallarie’s commanding voice had cut their excited chatter short and they fell into an apprehensive silence as they joined them at their camp site.

Tom saw that they all bore the recent scars of wounds inflicted by the men who had carried out the dispersal. One of the old men had a scalp wound and the other a bullet wound in the calf of his leg.

The Nerambura elder who had been wounded in the leg had limped when he walked to greet Wallarie, while the old woman had launched into a tirade that was obviously directed at the presence of the tall white man. Wallarie had delivered a speech that seemed to mollify the old woman, who turned her back on the young warrior and sat down. Mondo joined her and the two women went into a huddle, whispering between themselves.

Suddenly the old woman had stood up and shuffled towards Tom. She then reached down, grabbing him between the legs before he could react. He had winced with acute embarrassment as she broke into a cackling laugh and said something to the others. The old men too had broken into loud guffaws that racked their thin bodies as they fell about laughing. Mondo smiled shyly and Wallarie had grinned. Tom guessed to his acute embarrassment that the old woman had established his sex, hidden inside his trousers.

She gave a final yank on his manhood before hobbling away, cackling to herself, and in her wake she had left the young Irishman flushed with embarrassment. He was soon to learn that the Nerambura people had a rich and raunchy sense of humour.

From that day on his fate had been in the hands of the Nerambura survivors, led by the tall warrior. And in time he’d grown to know them for all their individual ways, as much as he had known his own family in Sydney.

Old Biddy was cantankerous and he dared not guess her age. But she must have been older than Old Billy. She would harangue the two elders, and often enough she would receive a blow from a gnarled fist from one of them. But she liked the young white man and would give Tom a choice fat wood grub to eat when the women dug them up around the roots of trees. The grubs were delicious and he’d regretted that he had nothing to give her in return for the choice morsels she brought him. Whenever he tried to thank her with his English words, she would cackle and hobble away shouting to Mondo, which caused the girl to giggle and drop her eyes shyly.

Kondola and Toka had tended to remain aloof from Tom. Kondola was the quieter of the two elders and was a man who wore the scars of many tribal duels on his body as badges of his prowess. He had once been a warrior and hunter of great repute among the Nerambura.

Toka had been known for the craftsmanlike weapons he chiselled, and he was one with the spirits of the wood that he carved so expertly with the razor-sharp flints. Tom had noticed that it was Toka who did most of the talking when the two old men sat cross-legged together under the shade of a tree or by the camp fire at night.

Then there was Mondo, whom Tom had gleaned from observation was not Wallarie’s woman. It was hard to believe that a marriageable woman such as Mondo was not with Wallarie, but the Irishman had not yet learnt of the strict taboo of the Darambal people which banned marriage between persons of the same totem.

Finally there was the boy, Young Billy, whom Tom had guessed was probably about nine years of age and desperate – as young boys of his age are – to be recognised as a man worthy of hunting with Wallarie.

Now, as they trudged towards the camp, Tom gazed at the dark clouds tantalisingly low over the dusty plains.

Sometimes the distant rumble of thunder rolled to them, but no rain came. The rains were late and the plains tinder hot and dry to the naked foot. Tom had not seen the signs of the white man for a long time; no telltale ruts left by the wheels of the drays, nor the print of the horse’s hoof. He sensed that they were well beyond the established white man’s frontier. They still walked in a land in harmony with all that lived upon it. But sadly it was only a matter of time before the plagues of sheep and cattle came to ravage the native grasses and spoil the pristine water holes.

He sighed. Was this the only life he would ever know? To walk forever in the desolate lands beyond the frontier with a people whose fabric of life was as torn as his own? The melancholy lifted from him when he heard the welcoming cackle of Old Biddy praising them for the feast they were bringing into the camp.

Wallarie dropped the big bird beside the fire pit which had been prepared by Biddy. She had an unshakable faith in the warrior’s ability and she had, with the help of Mondo, dug a pit with digging sticks. The cooking area was lined with rocks and a few precious tree branches and the aromatic scent of eucalyptus steamed up from the hole.

The two elders sat cross-legged under the shade of a scrawny scrub tree chatting to each other. When they saw the three hunters approaching, they heaved themselves to their skinny legs to hobble over and examine the carcass with admiring prods and pokes. It was a fat bird which would fill hungry bellies this night and there would be meat left over for the next day.

Tom slumped wearily to the ground and stretched his legs while Mondo gave him one of her regular shy looks from where she knelt, pounding the tiny seeds of the native grasses into flour between two rocks. But this time her eyes lingered on him for longer than normal and he was aware of her frank appraisal. She was gaining respect for his ability to keep up with them on the trek towards the place where the sun slept each night.

He returned her smile, which made her think that she should not continue staring at the strange white man any longer or he would think she was being too forward in her interest of him, which was true. But she did not want him to know.

Wallarie prepared the emu for cooking in the pit as Billy hopped around excitedly, boasting of his own part in the taking of the big bird. With great care, Wallarie placed the stones and earth on top of the emu and while it was cooking, he sat with the elders discussing the events of the day.

There was little for Tom to do so he busied himself with the task of cleaning the Colt revolver while Young Billy squatted beside him, watching with childish curiosity. Each night, Tom checked his supply of ball and percussion caps.

Kondola sat cross-legged under a scraggly bush with Wallarie and Toka. As a boy, Kondola had walked the same route years earlier with his mother and his old eyes were still strong enough to see the signs around them on the plain.

‘The Kajana are watching us,’ he said, raising the disturbing issue for discussion.

‘I know,’ Wallarie answered. ‘I saw them on the hunt watching us.’

Toka gazed past him to the fire pit. ‘We have not gone on their land to hunt. They will leave us alone.’ The elder referred to the route that they had taken on their trek west, which was a corridor of neutral territory established between adjoining tribes over countless years. While they remained within the neutral corridor, they would be left unmolested.

‘There is little sign of emu or kangaroo for us if we stay on the track into the country of my mother,’ Wallarie answered. ‘We might starve before we get there.’ Both old men nodded. The alternative would be a confrontation with their traditional enemy, the Kajana, should they leave the trail that gave them safe passage. The options were grim. Death by starvation or at the hands of the Kajana.

‘The Rainbow Serpent will rise from His lagoon soon,’ Toka said optimistically. ‘And then there will be plenty of emu and kangaroo for us.’ The glum expressions of the other two did not echo his optimism.

‘We have plenty of food for now,’ Kondola stated as he picked at the earth with a sharp stick. ‘The women fetch the nardoo seeds and even a bandicoot for us from time to time. We will not starve for now. But if the rains do not come . . .’ his voice trailed away.

Wallarie listened to the opinions of the two old men. As leader of his diminished tribal clan, he would have to make a decision before they became too weak from hunger to hunt. The Kajana were fierce warriors who had raided the Darambal people over many seasons, back to a time no one could remember. Rarely had the Darambal been able to better the Kajana in the inter-tribal skirmishes fought with spear, nulla and boomerang.

Wallarie rose and left the two old men to continue speculating on the future intentions of the Kajana, who dogged them each day, but remained hidden on the vast plain.

When the Rainbow Serpent finally rose from His lagoon, He did not come as a gentle and refreshing rain but as a series of torrential thunderstorms.

Small dry depressions that had snaked across the plains became raging rivers as Tom and the Nerambura huddled together at night for warmth. In the open plains, under the deluge, they disregarded the traditional protocol that separate the men from the women when they slept.

For two days the torrential rains kept them in camp, huddling together miserably. More than once they were beset by plagues of deadly snakes that sought the higher ground Wallarie had found to keep them above the rising waters. The unlucky snakes were killed and eaten raw by the wet and hungry survivors. A spiny anteater that had waddled into the camp became food for them. At least they did not have to go far for fresh meat.

On the third day, when the rains eased to a heavy drizzle, Wallarie knew that they must leave. It was not only the law of the Kajana that influenced the warrior’s decision. Toka had warned him that the passage to the channel country was by now almost impossible to traverse. The rivers between them and the channel country had mysteriously swelled even when the rains ceased over the blacksoil plains. The Nerambura did not know of the tropical monsoon in the north, which filled the catchment areas of the rivers that flowed south, but every year it was the same as the Nerambura elders had come to learn.

The game would now be abundant around the water holes in the traditional lands of the Nerambura: wild duck, turtle, fish and the flowering of the edible plants. Wallarie had little choice in choosing to return to the lands that had been those of his people back to the Dreamtime. Had not the spirits of the trees, rocks and animals there impregnated the women? Was it not the place where the ancestors lived in the Dreaming? If he were going to die, as was the fate of every living thing, then it was better to do so among the spirits of his own ancestors and not those of strangers.

The Irishman could see the deep contemplation in the face of the warrior as he stared in the direction of the rising sun. The decision to retrace their steps lifted Tom’s spirits because he would be returning to the world he had left behind.

By now the Native Mounted Police and their auxiliaries would have given up any search for him and he could make his way back to Rockhampton. From there he would be free to go after the men responsible for his father’s murder. But he would be leaving behind his Nerambura family and this thought left him with a guilt that he did not attempt to contemplate.

EIGHTEEN

T
he little paddle-steamer swung into the main channel of the Fitzroy River and puffed up a full head of steam. She had to fight the heavy flow of floodwaters that rushed to the ocean, staining the opal-like sea a dirty brown. The river was awash with debris and the occasional carcass of an animal drifted past, and her captain kept a sharp lookout for the submerged logs that could ram and hole his boat as she slowly manoeuvred her way up the river passing river banks alive with water birds; clumsy looking pelicans, graceful long-legged waders and flocks of gregarious ducks.

The boat bucked the heavy run of water and the very pregnant young woman who gripped the boat’s railing watched the normally cumbersome pelicans glide gracefully across the calmer waters near shore. With almost childish joy, she saw them settle and float with their over-sized yellow bills tucked into white-feathered breasts.

The thoughts of Kate O’Keefe – nee Duffy – were not so much on the wild beauty of the river bank as on the anticipated meeting with her father and brother Tom. What would they look like now? Tom would be a young man courting the ladies! What would her father think about being a grandfather for the first time? She guessed that they would gape with surprise and express the usual male doubts about a woman as young as herself with such grandiose plans as building a hotel, even with the help of her husband.

The carcass of a wallaby drifted off the portside bow and Kate felt a surge of pity for the unfortunate animal as it bobbed like a balloon on the paddle-steamer’s wake. Something thrashed the muddy water and snapped at the bloated body. She gasped and recoiled at the terrible sight of the primeval reptilian head with its gaping mouth and rows of yellowed teeth. It was like something from one of her worst childhood nightmares. The wallaby disappeared as the big estuarial crocodile dragged the dead animal below the muddy waters. Her reaction of horror was observed by the tall man who stood beside her at the rails.

‘’Gator, ma’am,’ he drawled in a deep voice. ‘Can’t hurt us here.’

She turned to the man who had obviously been aware of her distress. Although she did not know the tall stranger, she had been aware of him when he had joined the paddle-wheeler in Brisbane for the journey north.

She remembered how he had been standing on the Brisbane wharf with a bed-roll slung over his shoulder. He had stood aloof from the other passengers milling around him as they fussed over luggage and bade farewell to friends and family with tears and hugs. There had been something about the man that had attracted her interest then. Something in the way he stood alone and proud.

He was not handsome in the classical sense and she mused that he was quite old – possibly in his late twenties or early thirties. He had a thick bushy beard and blue eyes that seemed to gaze far beyond the people around him. From his manner of dress, she guessed that he was one of the legendary Kennedy men she had read about in the Sydney journals. The Kennedy men were so named after the sprawling region west of Rockhampton and further north. A wild and untamed territory.

They were the stuff of daydreams of pasty-faced young clerks in dingy Sydney offices who dreamed of an adventurous life riding the sun-drenched mountains and plains of the northern colony. They were the tough, devil-may-care men who lived life without a damn for the morrow, riding with a six-gun on their hip and a stockwhip over their saddle. Yes, the tall stranger who stood alone on the wharf was obviously a Kennedy man, she mused, as he stood with his thumbs tucked in his belt, and at one stage she was embarrassingly caught appraising him. His smouldering blue eyes came alive with a faint trace of a smile as he looked up at her, and she had looked away with a touch of guilt for having been caught staring at him.

Now she was standing only a few feet from the man and she could see a long scar stretching from the corner of his right eye to disappear in his bushy beard. She did not think that the scar detracted from his appearance, but it gave him an interesting and mysterious aura of someone who had seen much danger and adventure in his life. She knew that the tall stranger’s accent was that of an American. She had often heard the soft and melodious twang of that nation’s sailors who had ventured to her uncle’s hotel in Redfern.

‘’Gators! Are they the same as crocodiles?’ she asked the stranger. His smile was warm and she felt the sudden and uncomfortable feeling of being scrutinised by the man.

‘It’s unusual to hear someone call the ’gators by their correct name,’ he said. ‘I gather you know something about the creatures in this part of the world, Missus . . .?’

Kate could see that he was waiting for her to introduce herself and she felt annoyed at his conceit in assuming she would do so. But he was smiling and his voice had a deep resonance that was also attractive. Her annoyance dissolved under the spell of his natural charm.

‘Missus O’Keefe,’ she answered with a tilt of her chin and the stranger swept the cabbage-tree hat from his head.

‘Luke Tracy, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I gather the big fella I had the misfortune to play cards with last night was your husband, Mister O’Keefe?’ She nodded sadly and turned away to watch the mangrove shore slide past the
Princess Adelaide
.

Ever since their stay-over in Brisbane, Kevin O’Keefe had made a habit of leaving her at nights to gamble. He would return in the early hours of the morning reeking of cheap rum and cheaper perfume. When he had suffered a loss at the card table his mood would be morose and violent, and although he had never struck her, even in his worst outbursts, she had begun to fear his seething temper.

If he had a good win for the night, he would return to her as a warm and loving man – the Kevin O’Keefe she had fallen in love with and married – not the other man who preferred the company of gamblers and the pretty women they attracted. Kate was relieved when they finally left Brisbane behind and she’d prayed, as they came closer to Rockhampton, that he would begin to realise his responsibilities as a husband and future father.

‘Did my husband win much from you, Mister Tracy?’ she asked when she returned her attention to the American.

‘Not much you can win from a down-and-out prospector, Missus O’Keefe,’ he replied with a rueful grin. ‘No, I got out before the stakes went too high. ’Bout the only gambling I should stick to is looking for gold.’

She glanced down at his hands. They were strong, with the palms of a man who had known hard physical work all his life. He was a strange mixture, she mused. He was brash yet shy, and she wondered about the women in his life.

‘Are you and Mister O’Keefe settling in Rockhampton?’ Luke asked politely.

‘We are hoping to build a hotel. If not there, somewhere on the coast,’ she answered. ‘Do you live in Rockhampton, Mister Tracy?’

‘Not since the Canoona rush of ’58,’ he replied. ‘It’s been almost five years since I was last here. Like thousands of other fools, I came here in ’58 only to find out that all the gold was gone long before I arrived. Been that way for me since I left Ballarat in ’54. Always seem to be chasing someone else’s luck.’

‘I was at Ballarat for a little while in ’54 with my father and his brother, Uncle Frank,’ Kate said. ‘But I am afraid I was too young to remember much about life there. Father and Uncle Frank were among the more fortunate miners and they were able to purchase a hotel. Except my da decided he was not cut out to be a publican and used some of their good luck to take a bullock dray out bush. My older brother, Tom, went with him.’ She paused and backtracked. ‘It’s the Erin in Sydney. Do you know the Erin, Mister Tracy?’

‘Sorry, ma’am, can’t say that I had much call to visit Sydney,’ he replied, shaking his head.

‘Well, my father and brother are now somewhere in the Kennedy district with their bullock team,’ she added proudly. ‘My father was one of the miners who stood at the Eureka Stockade.’

The American turned to stare across the river. ‘I was also there when the redcoats came for us,’ he said softly, as he remembered the terrible Sunday morning when the British Army and the goldfield police launched their attack on the rebel stockade. ‘What name does your father go by, Missus O’Keefe?’ he asked.

She did not hold much faith in him knowing her father. Many miners had stood against the British Army that terrible morning of the massacre.

‘Patrick Duffy. He was . . .’

‘He was with us!’ Luke suddenly beamed. ‘Big Irishman who had a German mate . . . I just can’t think of the German’s name . . .’

‘Max Braun!’ Kate squealed with delight. ‘Max works for my Uncle Frank in Sydney.’

‘Your father fought beside us . . . the California Rangers Independent Revolver Brigade . . . I thought the redcoats got him,’ Luke said, and his eyes twinkled with pleasure at the news that the big bearded Irishman and the German had escaped the bayonets and swords of the soldiers.

Suddenly Kate was as happy as a little girl as she talked to a man who had not only known her father, but had also stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the fight for the miners’ rights at the stockade.

‘No, Father and Max escaped,’ she said, and immediately thought about the scar that ran in a jagged line below the American’s eye. ‘Is that where you got your scar?’

He grimaced and touched the edge of the welt and the smile was gone. ‘Redcoat bayonet,’ he replied bleakly.

For the American there was a haunting memory of a hot summer’s dawn in the British colony of Victoria and a time of killing; miner against British redcoat. They had been rebels fighting under the blue and silver flag of the Southern Cross. Men from all nations protesting the injustice of paying taxes to the British Government without representation.

When their complaints fell on the deaf ears of Governor Hotham, the protest had ended in the frustration of armed rebellion. But the military defeat of the rebel miners at Eureka had eventuated in a political victory for them, and their mates had not died in vain that Sunday summer’s morning.

As they chatted, Kevin O’Keefe groped his way along the rail looking as ill as he felt. The pungent odour of the mangrove swamps had drifted to where he lay below decks in a world of self-inflicted pain.

He had dragged on his clothes and made his way up to the deck where he knew his wife would be. O’Keefe was annoyed to see her talking to the tall man whom he remembered from the evening before. A Yankee, he thought, with a touch of jealousy for the way his wife was engrossed in her chatter with the tall man. O’Keefe did not like the look of the American. He was a man who was too charming for his own good, he thought irritably. He knew that if he asked Kate what she thought of him she would probably say, ‘An interesting man’, which he suspected was a woman’s way of saying ‘attractive’.

Kate saw her husband approaching and broke off the conversation with Luke. Both men greeted each other with a nod and she launched into a discourse on all that had happened prior to her husband’s arrival on deck. She told him about the crocodile taking the body of the wallaby and of how this had led to meeting with the American. ‘Mister Tracy has lived in Rockhampton before,’ she said cheerfully to her surly husband. ‘He might be able to tell us something about this part of Queensland.’

Luke eyed O’Keefe with a hint of contempt in his blue eyes and wondered how a man could leave such a pretty and pregnant wife alone at nights. He had noticed how O’Keefe flirted with the ladies when they were playing cards and he felt sorry for Kate. He figured O’Keefe as a ladies’ man, one of those men who could never settle with one woman no matter how pretty she was. And he had to admit to himself that the girl was more than just pretty – she was downright beautiful.

‘Not much I can tell you about the place,’ he drawled. ‘When I last saw Rockhampton it was just a few bark huts on the southern side of the river. Friends tell me a few of the diggers from the Canoona settled there and that the town has got pretty much civilised.’

‘You have work in Rockhampton, Mister Tracy?’ O’Keefe asked as he scratched at a night’s growth of dark bristles under his chin.

‘No, I plan to push on as soon as I can,’ he replied. ‘Probably scratch around to set myself up for a grubstake, then head out west.’

‘Doing what?’ O’Keefe asked bluntly. He was in no mood to be friendly to the American.

‘Looking for the big one,’ Luke drawled.

‘Big one?’

‘Yeah. Find a gold strike the world will remember. Like Dunlop and Regan did back in ’51 at Ballarat,’ Luke replied, with a slightly wistful sigh for the recollection of great events in history.

‘Oh, look!’ Kate exclaimed. A huge flock of wild ducks rose with a rapid beat of wings from a lagoon adjoining the river and flew towards the flat grass-covered plains interspersed with tea-tree. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ she said in an awed voice, as she gazed over the river at the scenery of the hills. Her husband grudgingly admitted that there was beauty in the country, although he would have preferred to be looking over the dirty rooftops of Sydney’s mean streets.

‘Certainly is handsome country,’ Luke echoed for Kate’s sake.

‘Is the town far away?’ she asked, her eyes wide with excitement.

‘Not far,’ he answered. ‘Just a bit up the river.’

‘I think then, Kate,’ Kevin said as he steered his wife by the elbow away from the American, ‘that you and I should go below and prepare ourselves to go ashore. We might see you in Rockhampton some time, Mister Tracy,’ he added without conviction.

‘Could do, Mister O’Keefe,’ Luke replied, tipping his hat politely at Kate. He stared after her as she walked away with her husband. ‘It was good making your acquaintance, Missus O’Keefe. I hope all goes well for you.’ Luke had seen something in her eyes that had worried him. He had seen the same thing before in other places and other times in the north. He wondered if O’Keefe knew his wife was a very sick woman. She had the beginnings of the fever. Still, Missus O’Keefe was not his concern. She had a husband to look after her, he thought, as he shrugged and turned to stare at the ragged range of forest-covered hills.

A drifting log slammed into the bow of the little paddle-steamer but she took the knock and ploughed on. Soon the frontier township of Rockhampton came into view as Luke had promised Kate it would.