Shadow of the Osprey (5 page)

‘You know who I am,’ Kate said gently as the girl tried to wipe away tears from her face. ‘But I don’t know who you and the boy are.’

‘Me name is Jennifer Harris. I came to the Palmer with me son,’ she replied softly. ‘I thought I could use the last of my money to find a fortune for Willie and me.’

Kate was confused. Who was Willie? Surely not the boy watching Ben. If he was, then the girl must have only been twelve or thirteen when she had given birth to him.

‘Is that Willie?’ Kate asked pointing to him. She saw a haunted look in the girl’s eyes of things better not spoken about. Survival was a strong instinct and had the ability to overcome any rules of morality that men made. Kate knew without having to ask further how the young girl had traded for the meagre food that had kept her and her son alive. ‘Where did you come from before the Palmer?’ she asked softly.

‘Willie and me come up from Brisbane. Before that we came up from Sydney with me dad. Me dad was a gardener. He got sick with the consumption. It killed him a few years back when we were in Brisbane. He left me and Willie some money, but it weren’t enough and ran out. I used the last to come north. Willie and me come up together in December. That is when I first saw you. I thought you had a kind face. And when I saw you return . . .’ She could not finish her story and began to sob again. Kate guessed she was remembering the horror of the past months. ‘This place is worse than hell. The only way I could get food for Willie and meself was to . . . to . . . ’

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Kate said, stroking her matted hair as if she were a child.

Her simple gesture was soothing and Jennifer cried until she could cry no more. Gone now were the grunting bodies of the men who had used her body for their relief. Gone were the men who in their lust had bitten her young flesh leaving the bruises as a stallion might leave on the neck of a mare. Now there was the empathy of a woman who seemed to understand her pain, a pain of having been brutally deprived of childhood by the perverted demands of the rich and powerful Mister Granville White.

The birth of Willie had come too early in her young life. In Kate’s gentle touch she discovered a strange yet wonderful fleeting feeling of what it might have been to be a little girl safe from physical and spiritual pain.

‘You want to travel with us back to Cooktown?’ Kate asked gently. Jennifer nodded. ‘It is not an easy trip. You would be expected to help pay your way with hard work,’ she cautioned.

‘I would take the place of your bullocks to get away from here Missus O’Keefe,’ she replied with a bitter snort and glanced at her son. ‘I would do almost anything.’

‘And what do you plan to do when you get to Cooktown?’ Kate asked. ‘You do not appear to have any money.’

Jennifer sighed. Getting out of the Palmer would only put her and Willie in Cooktown. And from what she had heard of Cooktown’s evil reputation it was on a par with the biblical towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. Hell had a seductive call. It had called firstly from the banks of the Palmer River and was now leading her deeper into its pits. The deepest section of the northern hell was Cooktown itself. The newcomers had laughed at how the brothels outnumbered the hotels – and there were over sixty hotels licensed in Cooktown!

‘I don’t know what I will do. I suppose anywhere has to be better than the Palmer.’

‘Do you read and write?’ Kate asked.

Jennifer looked at her with an expression of surprise. ‘No, Missus O’Keefe. But I want Willie to learn one day,’ she answered with a firmness that assured Kate the young woman would make it happen. ‘All I’m good at is looking after young ’uns.’

‘Then you have a job with me when we get back,’ Kate said with a smile. ‘If you wish to work for me, that is?’ Jennifer opened her mouth to express her thanks but Kate cut her short. ‘You might think the Palmer has more to offer when I tell you what I want to employ you for.’ Jennifer reached out and gripped Kate’s hands as Kate continued. ‘I have a position for a nanny. But for a nanny who can look after three children. Two boys and one girl. It would also mean looking after four when we count Willie. Do you think that you could do that?’

‘Yes, Missus O’Keefe. I would love to,’ she replied without hesitation.

‘You might not think the job is all that good when you meet them,’ Kate smiled mysteriously. ‘They are just a little bit wild. I’ve already had a couple of nannies give their notice. But I have a feeling that any woman who could survive on her own on the Palmer through the Wet might be just the person for the job.’

Ben soon had the stew ready while in the hot coals a blackened billy was full of steaming water ready for brewing tea. Although Jennifer was ravenous she had trouble keeping the food down. Her son had no such problem and volunteered to wipe the pot clean with a slice of damper bread.

While they were eating Ben stole glances at the girl. She was pretty, very pretty. And the birthmark did not detract from her beautiful oval-shaped face, pinched as it was with the privations she had suffered. He could also see that she was very self-conscious about the birthmark; she would try to let her long hair fall over her face to conceal it from the eyes of the curious.

As they relaxed by their campfire after the filling meal, they sipped on the hot tea sweetened with sugar, and listened to the sounds of the goldfields. From the depths of the night came the twanging sound of a jew’s harp and somewhere a fiddle yowled out a tune. The voices of men and women joined in popular songs to celebrate full stomachs and another day alive. Laughter was becoming a more common sound on the goldfields as the terrible months of the Wet were rapidly forgotten by the miners. They looked optimistically to the promised golden days ahead. By the light of scattered fires, under the constellation of the Southern Cross, miners swapped stories, drank rum and smoked clay pipes. The clear night sky promised another day and with it the chance to resume the search for personal fortunes.

And it was by light of the campfire that Ben continued surreptitiously to glance with keen interest at the pretty girl Jennifer. But his interest was not lost on her. She would turn away quickly when their eyes met and talk to Kate as if she were not aware of him.

Kate smiled to herself when she saw the way Ben looked at the girl. He was like a guilty little boy. What would Solomon and Judith think of Ben’s interest in a Gentile girl who had an illegitimate son, she wondered. But that was another problem and one of lesser concern for now. First they had the journey back up the track to Cooktown. They’d have to contend with fording rivers and creeks all over again. The only certainty was that the journey would not be easy.

Ben left their campfire for a short time to visit a miner he knew from his days hauling supplies to Tambo. When he returned he had a worried expression on his bearded face. He squatted by the fire and poked a stick into the red glowing coals to make a light for his pipe.

‘Word’s come back that the myalls jumped Inspector Clohesy up the track at Hell’s Gate,’ he said, puffing on his pipe.

Kate heard his words and sipped at a mug of hot tea sweetened with sugar. Jennifer lay asleep with her head in Kate’s lap while Willie slept with his head in his young mother’s lap. The good food and comforting warm fire had caused them both to doze before falling into a deep and untroubled sleep. Kate did not have the heart to wake the girl and cradled her as she would a child. ‘He had seven troopers with him when they attacked him on the Laura River,’ Ben continued as he stared into the flickering flames of the fire.

Aboriginal tribesmen attacking a heavily armed party of police troopers meant they’d be more than prepared to attack two wagons and their escort of just two women, one boy and a man, Kate thought. She nodded gravely. They would not only have to traverse some of the most rugged land on the Australian continent, but they would also have to avoid the painted warriors of the north. It was ironic to think that the Aboriginal warriors would not be interested in the small fortune in gold they carried, that they would be more interested in their flesh!

Kate shuddered. The thought of what could be their fate if the tribesmen took them alive was horrifying. She had heard stories of how the tribesmen smashed the legs of their captives with rocks so that the victims could not escape and then roasted them to provide a feast.

Jennifer stirred when she felt the tiny shudder and opened her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Missus O’Keefe,’ she slurred sleepily. ‘I must have gone to sleep.’

Without thinking Kate gave Jennifer’s shoulder a gentle and reassuring squeeze. Her mind was on the supply of rolled brass cartridges for her Martini Henry, a rifle capable of bringing to a stop the fiercest of tribesmen. Although it was a single shot weapon she was very skilful with the gun and it would be this skill that would matter most in the weeks ahead. Kate was a long way from the comfort and security of her uncle’s hotel in Sydney. But then, she was a long way from the young girl she had once been before coming to Queensland to make her personal fortune.

She gazed down at Jennifer and the sleeping boy and was acutely aware that they had now become her responsibility. Glancing up at Ben squatting by the fire she felt somewhat reassured. Life had a way of bringing into her life capable men when she needed them most. ‘Luke?’ she whispered, and Ben glanced up from the coals of the fire.

‘You say something Kate?’ he asked in a puzzled voice.

‘No, I was just thinking about something.’

He looked away and Kate realised that there were tears in her eyes. The American prospector Luke Tracy came so easily to her thoughts when she was lonely and frightened. He had always been like a tough yet gentle guardian angel, guiding her safely along the dangerous tracks of her life. She had long convinced herself that she had not loved him and that he was merely a dear friend whose company she sorely missed. He was six years gone, to where only God knew, and she had to accept that, like her dead brothers Tom and Michael, and her father Patrick Duffy, the American was just another sad memory in her life.

But sometimes his slow drawling voice would be in her head when she slept under the stars. Or she’d briefly see his face in the image of a miner walking the tortuous track to the Palmer. At those times her feelings for Luke were even more confused.

S
o they called the place Cooktown, the lanky prospector mused as he stood at the edge of the dusty, bustling main street of the boom town. Might have been Tracytown, if I’d got to the Palmer first. With an ironic smile he hefted the swag onto his shoulders and strode down Charlotte Street.

Much of what he saw, heard and smelt brought back twenty-year-old memories of another great gold strike. It all had the same feeling as Ballarat back in ’54: the hastily erected shops of bark and tin selling everything from laudanum to gunpowder, the numerous but less than salubrious places of solace for a man’s carnal needs and the ever-present establishments to quench a thirst with fiery spirits. And always in the air an electric expectation generated by the newcomers preparing to go up the trail to the goldfields, convinced that a fortune awaited them at the end of their journey.

Six years he had been away from the land he had grown to know so well. A land where he had received his scar in the fierce battle on the Ballarat goldfields fighting the British army in an ill-fated rebellion against injustice. A land where he had searched for years for the elusive strike that would make him a rich man.

He appraised the eager faces around him and shook his head with a sadness for the bitter disillusionment he knew would be the fate for most. For this was not Ballarat within practical reach of the port of Melbourne and an easy road journey to the fields. This was the north where harsh jungles, mountains and monsoonal rains provided a natural barrier to even arriving on the fields. Luke knew. He had once attempted to reach the Palmer back in ’68 – and failed. That prospecting journey had almost cost him his life.

Perhaps if he had not been betrayed by a treacherous lawyer by the name of Hugh Darlington he might have been the first and his name written into history. He would have returned to the valleys south of the Palmer River and finally on to the Palmer itself. If he had he would have found what the dying prospector had told him about: ‘nuggets as big as hens’ eggs just lying in the shallows of the river for the taking.’ But the fever and the lack of supplies had driven him back when he knew he had been so close to his El Dorado. And a second opportunity to retrace his journey north had not presented itself.

Luke sighed for what might have been as he remembered the events that caused him to flee the colony for the far-off sanctuary of the land of his birth. Before he fled he had entrusted a large sum of money to Kate O’Keefe’s lawyer in Rockhampton – money made from the gold he had been given by the dying prospector. But Darlington had betrayed him to the police. Trading gold without official sanction brought heavy penalties.

Tall and rangy, Luke was now in the latter part of his thirties. His face was tanned from his exposure to the elements and the old scar that traced a line from his eye to his chin had become barely discernible with the passing of time. His blue eyes still had the look of a man accustomed to gazing at distant horizons. And although he did not have the classic handsome features of the refined gentleman, his face reflected a mixture of gentleness and savage strength. It was a face that was reassuring and easy to love.

‘Mister Tracy?’

The question caused him to freeze. Had one of the constabulary recognised him? Had a poster been produced of his likeness? Were they still out to arrest him? He turned slowly and felt a sickening recognition.

The big man limped towards him. ‘Sergeant James,’ he answered with a note of despair. ‘Long time since we last met.’

Henry James unexpectedly thrust out his hand. ‘I thought it was you, even though you have shaved off your beard.’ Luke accepted the handshake as Henry continued. ‘It’s not sergeant any more Mister Tracy. I was pensioned out of the police a couple of years back. Me and Emma work for Kate O’Keefe nowadays.’ The mention of Kate’s name caused Luke to feel giddy. ‘You feeling unwell Mister Tracy?’ Henry asked when he noticed the blood drain from the American’s face.

‘Yeah. Just getting my land legs,’ Luke replied as he recovered his composure. ‘How is Kate these days?’

‘As well as can be, from the last time I saw her.’

‘When was that?’ Luke asked, attempting to sound indifferent.

‘A few weeks back, before she went up the track to the Palmer with young Ben Rosenblum. They took a couple of wagons with supplies for the fields. Hoped to get through as soon as the Wet receded. According to all going well she should be on her way back by now.’ Henry broke into a broad smile and dropped his handshake. ‘I was down at the wharf checking on a cargo manifest when I saw you get off that ship out of San Francisco. Couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you. How long has it been?’

‘Too long,’ Luke sighed. ‘Too long away from Queensland.’

‘You have to come down to the depot and meet my family,’ Henry said, slapping Luke on the back. ‘I know Emma will be surprised to see you. She always figured you and Kate were a matched pair and wondered why you never got together.’

Luke let the big former policeman guide him along the wagon-rutted street through the jostling crowds that mirrored every nation and its citizens. As they walked Henry babbled on about events in the Australian colonies that he felt Luke might want to know. ‘You must have left the year that mad Irish Fenian shot Prince Alfred down in Sydney,’ he said.

Luke nodded. He vaguely remembered something talked about around the Brisbane hotels while he was waiting for his ship to San Francisco. Something about the attempted assassination of Queen Victoria’s second son who was on a goodwill tour of the Australian colonies. Some argued that the failed assassin was mad. Others stuck to the Irish Fenian plot to strike a blow against the English. No matter what, the man was eventually hanged.

A group of Europeans were struggling with a load of heavy supplies onto a dray.

‘Could do with some of them Kanakas up in this bloody place as labourers,’ Henry quipped. ‘Those big blackfellas are used to working in the tropics but the bloody Queensland government has passed an Act protecting ’em. Think it had something to do with that massacre of sixty islanders aboard that blackbirder brig
Carl
back in ’68. And we’re not getting any more convicts to help out since you left. It seems England is deserting us,’ he grumbled. ‘Pulled out their army leaving us to fend for ourselves. And just when we need ’em to give the myalls a lesson in civilised behaviour around these parts. The government has been trying to round up the blackfellas but the myalls up here are a different lot to the ones I knew down south. Fight like those Spanish guerillas did against old Napoleon’s armies in the Peninsula War. Hit and run tactics against the miners along the track to the goldfields.’

Luke listened with interest as Henry rambled on about the current status of the frontier. He had been away for just on six years and was learning quickly how things were different from what he remembered of the places beyond civilisation.

They came to one of the larger timber and iron shops at the end of the main street. Luke read the sign above the door:
The Eureka Company – General Merchants to the Palmer and Cooktown.
The name Eureka brought a smile to his face. The defiance was still in the Duffys. Henry ushered him inside the shop and Luke immediately found himself amidst a tidy cluster of goods. It was obvious from the well-stocked supplies that Kate ran a prosperous business. Men and women picked through the goods while a pretty young woman with startling blue eyes and long red hair tied back at her slender neck stood behind a heavy timber bench taking their money. She glanced up at Henry and then at Luke with a quizzical expression.

‘This is the legendary Luke Tracy,’ Henry said by way of flattering introduction. ‘Mister Tracy, my wife Emma.’

Luke removed his broad floppy hat and mumbled a polite, ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance ma’am.’

‘Mister Tracy,’ Emma said as she came out from behind the counter. ‘I have heard many stories about you from the Cohens and Kate. Had matters worked in more fortunate ways I might have met you earlier when you were briefly in Rockhampton.’

‘That was my misfortune,’ Luke said, somewhat embarrassed by the special treatment being doled out by the Jameses. ‘I knew your husband from those days.’

‘You are an extraordinary man by all their accounts,’ Emma said. ‘I think Kate is very fond of you, more fond than most.’

Luke felt just a twinge of a blush under his tanned skin. If only they knew how much Kate meant to him. Not a day of his life had passed without her coming to his thoughts with her beautiful grey eyes and gentle smile. Not an hour when he did not ache to hold her and tell her how much he had loved her. His was a love that had begun the day they had stood together on a paddlewheeler steaming up the Fitzroy River over a decade earlier. And when riding the snow-blasted prairies of Montana in winter he had talked to her in his head. On the great paddlewheelers of the Mississippi the scent of lavender would sometimes drift to him from the pretty ladies and he would instinctively seek her out. In the forest-covered mountains of the Rockies she had been with him as he sat by his campfire. No, it had not been the news of the gold rush to northern Queensland that had really brought him back to the shores of Australia. It had been the inevitable search for the one true love of his life – Kate O’Keefe. But it was also a hopeless search because even if he found her there was nothing to say that someone else did not share her affections. Or that he – an almost penniless drifter forever seeking El Dorado – would amount to much in her affections. Even the mention of her fondness for him amounted to little more than feelings one would have for a friend. And what would he say to her when he sees her again? The thought somehow frightened him more than any of the numerous dangerous situations he had confronted in his past.

‘Do you have lodgings?’ Emma asked, cutting across his thoughts. ‘If not then I know Kate would insist on you staying with us. We have a store room you can use until you decide on anywhere else you wish to stay.’

‘Good idea,’ Henry grunted. ‘Kate would never forgive us if she knew we had not offered.’

‘Thanks Sergeant James,’ Luke replied gratefully. He had just stepped off the ship and knew from past experience on goldfields that accommodation was at a premium. ‘I’ll take you up on your offer.’

‘It’s Henry,’ the former police sergeant said. ‘Don’t think formalities are in order with someone Kate holds in such high esteem.’

‘Thanks Henry,’ Luke said. ‘Hope you’ll call me Luke. Kind of nice to hear the name my mother gave me used by friends.’

Henry showed Luke to the spare room used to store bales of cloth. The American dropped his swag which was little more than a couple of blankets wrapped around the few personal items he carried. He glanced around and Henry could see that the American was pleased with what he saw. Although the heat in the tropics could be almost unbearable the plank walls had cracks wide enough to let in a gentle breeze yet keep unwanted visitors out. It was clean, protected from the elements and relatively comfortable when the bales of cloth were used to sleep on.

‘We don’t live here,’ Henry said. ‘We have a place up on the hill overlooking the river. You are expected for dinner tonight. Emma is a wonderful cook.’

‘Thanks.’ Fate had dealt him a good hand for once.

‘I’ll leave for now,’ Henry said. ‘Got to get back to the wharf. Expecting supplies on the next ship from Brisbane. Guess I will see you later after you get settled in.’

Luke nodded and when Henry left sat down on a bale. His head was reeling from the totally unexpected meeting with ghosts of his past. He had never in his wildest dreams expected to come so close to Kate simply by stepping off the ship in Cooktown. He had originally planned to try his luck on the fields and then head south to Rockhampton where he had last seen her years earlier. But luck had brought him to where he was now – within maybe days of finding Kate. All he had to do was head up the track to the Palmer and if his luck held out he would find her.

He unrolled the swag to reveal a leather wallet containing personal papers, a big Colt revolver and a sewing kit. He unwrapped a spare shirt that had been in the swag, found his shaving gear and thought about going in search of a bath. He felt content under the azure skies of tropical North Queensland. He felt that he had come home.

That evening at the James residence on the hill Luke met the progeny of Tom Duffy and his Darambal wife Mondo: Peter, Timothy and Sarah. He was impressed by the three children’s manners. They were a credit to Kate, he thought, when informed how she had raised them with the help of governesses. He was also ruefully informed by Emma that they were a bit of a handful at times.

Luke also met Henry and Emma’s son Gordon who he noted was very much like his father in his looks and mannerisms. When he asked the ages of the children he was told that Peter and Gordon were both almost twelve, Timothy ten and Sarah eight. It was obvious that the Duffy children and the James boy were as close as blood could be. Particularly Gordon and Peter.

Peter had the dark skin of his mother’s people but the big build of his Irish father. His eyes were grey and he was a handsome lad. Timothy was fairer and very reserved. He did not seem to be as close as the others, Luke observed, and was less open in his way. But it was little Sarah who made the biggest impression on the American. Her skin had an almost golden sheen and she had the promise of growing into a beautiful young woman. But more than that, her nature was gentle and intelligent. She took an immediate liking to Luke.

Emma put the children in the care of a housekeeper who came in to assist at dinner times. The housekeeper, a good Christian woman who had lost her husband on the goldfields when a powder blast went wrong, had been hired by Kate to help Emma while she was away on the track. She was a big buxom middle-aged woman with grey hair and a no-nonsense approach to life and she quickly bustled the children off to bed.

Over a leg of roast mutton and vegetables Luke unfolded his plans to set out for the Palmer fields as soon as he had purchased sufficient supplies and had saved enough money to purchase a horse and new saddle.