Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 (25 page)

‘There are a hundred ways you can die out there, Kate,’ Luke protested. ‘Believe me. I have seen at least fifty ways a healthy, well-armed and experienced bushman can die.’

Kate turned on him with a strange blaze in her eyes he had not seen before. ‘You are a bushman, Luke,’ she said, and he suspected that she was challenging him. ‘So why do you go out there if what you say is true?’

‘Because I am a man!’ he replied simply.

‘A man! Ah!’ Judith snorted with amusement. ‘Let me tell you, Luke Tracy. When I was Kate’s age, I followed Solomon out to this land to be with him. My family were shocked that a young girl should dare travel to a place as far away as New South Wales to join a man convicted of forgery, and they tried their best to stop me. But I came, and when I got here I worked while Solomon was in chains. And when he was given his ticket of leave, we travelled to places against the advice of our friends in this country. And you say that being a man makes you special! Did not your own mother, alone in the world without a man, travel with you halfway across America to California? And did she not care for you until you were ready to take your place in the world as a man? And you say that only a man could go out west.’

Luke hung his head sheepishly at her tirade. She was right. But he could not admit he was beaten.

‘My mother was older than Kate,’ he said lamely, ‘when we travelled to California.’

‘That may have been so,’ Judith retorted. ‘But she was still a woman.’

Luke knew he was trapped and he stood with a pained expression on his face staring towards the west before finally turning and speaking softly.

‘I will guide you, Kate, if you are foolish enough to go ahead with your plan.’ He was also angry at himself for letting the young woman manipulate him so easily. A man had little chance against the devious schemes of a woman.

‘You don’t have to,’ she snapped unexpectedly. ‘I am sure I could manage without a man.’

‘I said I will guide you, Kate. And that is final,’ he flared angrily. He was not prepared to have a girl of her tender years patronise him. ‘We can leave as soon as I get supplies together. Maybe early next week.’ Goddamn women, he thought. They know how to twist a man around their fingers.

The two women exchanged knowing looks when Luke turned to Solomon to discuss supplies for the journey west.

‘Luke?’ Kate called softly, before the two men were to return to the store. ‘I am sorry that I will not be able to pay you now. But if you will put your trust in me, I will repay you some day.’

Luke scowled and shook his head. ‘I’m not doing this for pay, Kate,’ he said and stormed away with Solomon hurrying to catch up with him.

‘He is a good man, Kate,’ Judith said as Kate gazed at the departing back of the tall American. ‘With him, you will always be safe.’

‘Yes, he is a good man,’ Kate echoed with a sigh. ‘I wish my husband had been more like him.’

Judith could see that Kate was on the verge of tears and she guessed she was thinking about the past. ‘I think Luke likes the mare, so the gelding is my present to you,’ Judith said and Kate impulsively threw her arms around her.

‘Thank you, Judith,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for everything. I will never forget all that you have done for me.’

‘I got the horses cheap from those robbing horse traders,’ Judith said with a small laugh and Kate replied with tears of gratitude.

‘You have asked nothing from me,’ she said. ‘I will always be grateful to you and Solomon.’

Judith was trying not to cry herself. ‘The men must not see our tears or they will think we are just poor weak women. And we know different to that,’ Judith said, pushing Kate gently an arm’s length from the embrace. ‘Your journey on the rest of your life will start somewhere out there, Kate. And I think God has given you a task as He gave to Deborah for my people. I don’t know how I know this. I just do. There are people who need you, and I think it is out there in the wilderness you will find the answers.’

Kate listened to Judith’s words with awe. How could the tall woman know of her own strange premonitions? Then Judith changed the subject.

‘Come. I think we should choose for you suitable clothes to wear for your trip. And I think you should have a gun. Most of the women out here have guns.’

When they joined the men in the store, they found them haggling over the price of supplies. Solomon moaned as if he had been stripped of all that he owned and Kate smiled at the sight of the two good friends locked head to head in a loud dispute with each other.

But even so, she felt a small fear creeping into her thoughts. Why was the journey to find her father so important? Was the answer somewhere in Tom’s words that had come to her in her dream those many weeks past? And Judith’s words . . . She knew the answer was somewhere out in the wilderness of central Queensland.

TWENTY-THREE

‘S
ar’nt Henry! Sar’nt Henry!’

Henry James rolled on his side and reached instinctively for the revolver in its holster by his bed. There was an urgency in the voice that called to him from outside his bark hut and he knew something was very wrong. Trooper Barney would never disturb his sleep unless it was literally a matter of life and death.

‘What? Trooper Barney . . . what’s happened?’ Henry mumbled as he tried to shake off the sleep still upon him.

‘You come quick, Sar’nt Henry. Corporal Gideon . . . he bin killed, Sar’nt Henry.’

‘What in hell are you saying, Trooper?’ Henry bellowed as he crashed open his door, waving his revolver wildly. ‘What do you mean Corporal Gideon has been killed?’

The Aboriginal trooper stood at the foot of the verandah steps wearing a pair of old European cast-off trousers two sizes too big for him. His eyes rolled wildly in the garish glow from the lantern that cast his face in a mask of terror.

‘Mister Mort. He bin kill Corporal Gideon down at One Tree camp tonight,’ he babbled. ‘Mister Mort a
debil debil
, Sar’nt Henry. He bin crazy and stab Corporal Gideon until Corporal Gideon, he die. All finish.’

Henry snatched the lantern from the terrified trooper and bounded up the steps into his quarters where he slammed the light on the small table at the centre of the cramped room and hurriedly dressed in his uniform.

The news had spread rapidly through the troopers’ quarters and an eerie keening wail of the women rose as an unearthly sound in the night. It reminded the sergeant of the crying of the curlews in the bush.

When Henry was dressed, Trooper Barney followed him to the saddling yard. The horses skittered as they were readied. The wailing of the women had unsettled them.

‘Tell me what happened,’ Henry snapped as he adjusted the girth of his saddle.

‘I don’t know, Sar’nt Henry,’ Trooper Barney replied. ‘I was with the old men when I heard Mister Mort had come into the camp. He look funny . . .’

‘What do you mean, funny?’

‘He was jus’ smilin’ all the time an’ said he was goin’ to get Corporal Gideon for killin’ those gins,’ the Aboriginal trooper continued. ‘Corporal Gideon was with one of the One Tree gins an’ Mister Mort told him to go with him to the bush. Corporal Gideon, he looked scared . . . we all was . . .’ Henry knew why they were scared. They had been caught infringing the no-alcohol rule for troopers and such an infringement was likely to bring a lashing with the cat-o’-nine-tails. ‘. . . Then we hear Corporal Gideon scream,’ he added fearfully. ‘We run away an’ a old man tell us he see Mister Mort stab Corporal Gideon with his sword.’

‘Jesus!’ Henry blasphemed savagely. So Mort had gone mad and murdered a trooper. Killing of Aboriginals during a dispersal was one thing but the outright killing of a servant of Her Majesty – black or white – was another matter.

He felt sick at the decision he must make: to arrest a senior officer for murder was unprecedented in the Native Police and he was unsure of his lawful right to do so. Although he had never liked Mort, he had an inbred respect for authority. As the sergeant and the black trooper rode in the night to the One Tree camp, Henry was not sure what he would do when he confronted his superior officer . . . if he was stupid enough to stay around after murdering a man!

It did not take long to reach the Aboriginal settlement.

The camp’s fires cast eerie flickering shadows on the bark gunyahs of the dispossessed people who lived on the fringes of Rockhampton. The place was deserted except for the half-wild dogs that were always present in Aboriginal camps and Henry knew that the inhabitants, to a man, had gone into hiding in the surrounding scrub. The dogs snarled and barked at the intrusion of the horsemen as the two police officers reined their horses to a halt. But the camp was not completely deserted.

By the largest fire sat Mort in his best dress uniform, warming his hands as if he had just stopped to rest. He was smiling with a curious and fixed expression on his face, with his infantry sword across his lap. Even in the dim and flickering light cast by the fire, Henry could see the long blade was dark with blood and there was a terrible madness in the officer’s face. Mort did not appear disturbed at the arrival of his sergeant. In fact, he appeared pleased to see him.

Trooper Barney edged back into the protective darkness outside the fire’s glow. He did not want to be in the presence of the white devil.

‘Ah, Sergeant James,’ Mort said casually. ‘I see Trooper Barney has fetched you. I was hoping one of the charcoals might.’

Henry remained astride his horse and stared with amazement at the man sitting so complacently by the fire with a smile reminiscent of a hideous grimacing death mask.

‘What do you have to say about Corporal Gideon . . . sir?’ he growled. ‘Trooper Barney tells me you killed him.’

‘Yes, that I did. His body is over there in the bush,’ Mort replied with a flourish of his sword towards the darkness. ‘Most regrettable that I was forced to take action. All the man had to do was come with me to the barracks for questioning about the killing of those nigger women, but he chose to try to kill me instead and I took the necessary action to defend myself.’

‘Defend yourself, sir?’ Henry asked. It was incredulous that the man could offer such a weak excuse. His smug composure was unnerving.

‘Yes, Sergeant,’ Mort replied as if explaining something difficult to a child. ‘Corporal Gideon was the man killing all those nigger women around here. I came to that conclusion from my own investigations. And when I came out here to speak to him, he panicked and tried to strangle me. Fortunately, I came armed . . . or should I say . . . unfortunately, for Corporal Gideon.’

Henry dismounted, keeping his eyes on the officer by the fire. The bastard had covered himself. Or he might be telling the truth. Had Gideon acquired a taste for the killing? Had the dispersals unhinged his mind in some way? It was slightly possible that he could have been the killer, as he had been with the Native Police for a long time and exposed to the white man’s brutal ways of senseless killing. The questions haunted him as Mort’s apparent calmness and self-assuredness planted a seed of doubt in Henry’s mind. No, not Gideon. Not the big Aboriginal corporal!

Henry lifted a burning stick from the fire and held it aloft to walk cautiously in the direction where Mort had said he had left the dead trooper. Mort remained by the fire staring at the flickering flames. ‘More to the left, Sergeant,’ he called helpfully and Henry stumbled on the body.

It lay on the dry earth staring with sightless eyes towards the star-filled sky. Henry squatted beside the dead corporal and lowered the firebrand to examine his friend’s corpse. The glow of the firebrand revealed the extent of mutilations to the body.

But the sergeant’s attention was centred on one wound Gideon had suffered before he died. All doubts about the Aboriginal corporal’s possible guilt were affirmed when Henry saw the terrible wound to his mouth. It was the trademark of the killer who had tortured to death the three Aboriginal girls. A sword! Henry thought. It had been a sword that had been used to kill the Aboriginal girls. Not a knife, as he had concluded previously.

‘Jesus! Gideon,’ Henry groaned softly as he closed the big corporal’s eyes in a final gesture of friendship. ‘The bastard slew you for no reason other than his insanity.’

When Henry emerged from the darkness, he was holding a pistol pointed directly at Mort’s head. There was a cold rage in the sergeant’s eyes that made the officer flinch nervously, losing some of his smug composure. He had not expected the sergeant’s reaction although he knew that his sergeant and the Aboriginal corporal were as close as a white man could be to a nigger. But levelling a pistol at him was beyond any measure that he had expected.

Mort did not rise to his feet but stared into the fire and said calmly, ‘You should put away that gun, Sergeant. It might go off should you stumble . . . and then it might cause me some personal grief.’

‘You murdering bastard,’ Henry snarled as he pulled back the hammer on the pistol. ‘You killed Corporal Gideon the same way you killed those poor bloody gins.’

‘I don’t know what brings you to that conclusion, Sergeant,’ Mort replied just a little shakily. ‘You have no proof of what you are saying. So I suggest that you put that gun away and I will forget what you have done here tonight. Pointing a gun at a superior officer is an extremely serious offence.’

‘So is murdering three girls and a police corporal . . . sir,’ Henry snarled. ‘Right now, I don’t know whether I should shoot you down . . . or arrest you. If I shoot you, then I will know justice has been done. But I would have to make up some story of how you had an accident and I’m not good at making up stories like you. But I think I could do it,’ he continued, and Mort knew he was actually contemplating killing him. This was not supposed to happen! He had seriously underestimated the man, whom he had always considered a slow-witted, lumbering fool.

‘If I arrest you I know how the courts work,’ Henry continued with a cold menace. ‘I doubt if the evidence will get a conviction . . . though both you and I know you are guilty. But then your arrest might lead to an investigation into the death of that Irish teamster. Oh! I forgot to tell you, Corporal Gideon told me everything that had occurred when you and Mister Macintosh were bailed up by the Irishman, so killing Gideon was a waste of time. The only trouble is that he told me just one day too late. I was troubled by how I might go about reporting the matter to Brisbane, but I am sure your arrest will cause quite a stir down there when the facts are put together.’

Mort’s mouth was dry with fear, as he knew the balance of power had shifted to the sergeant. Either way he was in trouble. A bullet . . . or a scandal!

‘You realise if you arrest me you will be finished in the Native Police,’ Mort croaked. ‘You and I both know that the authorities hate a scandal. Anyone who brings this sort of trouble down on their heads is finished. They will find a way to drum you out as soon as I hit the dock,’ he said, as a desperate attempt to stave off the big sergeant’s deadly fury. But the gun rose in Henry’s hand and there was a distinct glint of murder in the sergeant’s eyes.

‘No witnesses, Mister Mort,’ he said with a deadly softness that belied the hatred he felt for the officer at his feet. ‘I see Trooper Barney has made a tactful retreat and so it’s just you and I here now, and all I can see is the stab wound through Corporal Gideon’s mouth, just like the ones I saw on those poor bloody gins. That makes me get so angry my hand starts to shake and this gun will probably go off. I suppose I will have to think up something to say about your death. But it won’t matter to you because you will be dead anyway.’

Mort tried to rise to his feet, but he found all his physical strength had deserted him. Instead, he rose to a kneeling position with his hands extended in a begging gesture, and pleaded desperately, ‘Arrest me, if you think you should. There is no need to kill me. I might be dead but you will be in trouble enough to swing. Do you really want that?’

The gun blast exploded in the night and Mort screamed as he fell to the ground.

‘Dear God, man! This is murder,’ he blubbered, grovelling in the dust. ‘You can’t just shoot me down like some rabid dog.’

Henry cocked the pistol again, bringing it to bear on the officer at his feet. ‘Must have missed the first time,’ he said casually. ‘Never was good at using one of these in the dark.’

Mort held his arms over his head as if they could ward off the heavy lead bullets and in the initial blast of the pistol, his world had come apart at the seams. The English sergeant’s words came to him as a eulogy for the dead. ‘You know, I killed Russkies in the Crimea, and they were fine men. But it was never personal in war. Killing you
is
personal and I suppose you could say I’m not killing you, but carrying out an execution.’

‘Those nigger gins don’t warrant this,’ Mort said hysterically as he knelt before him. ‘They were just niggers like all the ones we killed out on the dispersals. I . . .’

‘Corporal Gideon may have been a blackfella but he was as fine as any man I ever served with in the Crimea. I’m doing this for him. And maybe that dead Irishman,’ Henry said in a flat and disembodied voice.

The gunshot echoed around the night like rolling thunder and dust sprouted beside Mort, who flinched as if he had been shot.

‘Dear God . . . Please . . . arrest me, but don’t kill me,’ he wailed, although a faint hope existed that the sergeant was toying with him for something other than his death and he was ready to listen to anything he suggested. The first two shots had not been intended to kill. But maybe the third? ‘What if I resign? What if we go back to the barracks and I write out my resignation . . . effective immediately?’ he offered with pleading desperation. He did not want to die in some filthy nigger camp.

‘You know as well as I do that you have to give notice before you resign,’ Henry said, considering his desperate proposition. ‘If you were to resign now, then you would have to get out of Queensland and never return.’

A cunning look returned to the police lieutenant’s eyes. Yes. He could promise to resign and as soon as they were back at the barracks and he had the opportunity, he would arrest the sergeant for his actions this night.

‘Yes, I know what you are saying. If I resigned and left . . . I would be in breach of the regulations and it would not sit well in Brisbane. But my resignation should suit your sense of justice,’ Mort rationalised.

‘It will do,’ Henry said, letting the barrel of his pistol fall away from the trembling officer’s head. ‘But should you try and renege on the resignation, I can promise you that you will have to kill me to stop me talking about everything I know. And I doubt even you will be able to explain away the deaths of both myself and Corporal Gideon should you decide to shoot me in the back on the trip to the barracks.’

Mort blinked. The sergeant was still one step ahead of him. Even if he arrested the sergeant, many things would come out that were best left unsaid and although it was all circumstantial, he knew what his sergeant could say would bring questions from all sorts of people . . . politicians, journalists and his own superiors. Yes, resignation was the only real answer.