Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) (24 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Exploration and Discovery

Luke’s wrong. He’s misleading you.

Leaves rustled. Tiny feet riffled through the duff of the forest floor. All familiar sounds.

Here, right here, everywhere around you, is the truth you heard from your fathers. Here is reality
.

Occasional sun-dapples intruded on the brooding gloom. He parted the leaves and branches as he moved forward. Whispering, they closed protectively behind him. Safe. Cradled in the past.

Listen to your ancestors and the spirits that guide you. The sky is but one of many. He’s an outlander, a babe. He’s proven that. What can he know?

Burriwi stopped. The forest voices had fallen silent up ahead to the northwest. He moved forward without parting leaves, letting his dark, naked body slip from here to there. He became yet another shadow in a forest of shadows and shapes that may or may not really be. The eye sees not half of reality.

There was the reason the spirits were silent. Waist deep in ferns, the intruder stood on a rocky little spike jutting from the steep hillside. He peered through a long black tube down toward the coast and Sugarlea. Burriwi moved in close and watched the man a few minutes. This fossicker, this white-feller with the hoary beard, was not one with the forest; only blackfellers achieved that unity; but he came very close. The spirits all around him did not embrace him, but neither did they cry
Stranger
! They tolerated him and allowed him to be comfortable. That much Burriwi could feel.

Sloan hated and feared this man. Burriwi had sensed that the first time Sloan questioned him about the man’s whereabouts and activities. Sloan’s own spirit was malign, though Burriwi felt no real discomfort around him. What made this fossicker an enemy of the lord of Sugarlea?

The man lowered the long tube from his eye and collapsed it somehow to a third of its length. Remarkable. Burriwi would have guessed it to be made of some very hard substance. He watched the man pick his way across the fern-clad ledge, then followed at a discreet distance as the fellow crunched through the forest, quartering up the hillside.

The man stopped. He sniffed loudly. “I smell you out there. You been eating too much whitefeller tucker. I can’t smell you when you eat off the forest. Prowl around and watch me or come walk with me. Don’t make no difference to me, either way.” He ambled on carelessly.

Burriwi followed silently until the fossicker had topped out on the ridge and seated himself on a rocky little outcrop. Why not see what this man has to say? Burriwi could judge later whether to reveal to Sloan that he had spoken with him. He stepped forward far enough to be visible.

From somewhere within that graying bush a smile emerged. “Welcome, friend. Have a seat.”

Burriwi leaned against a tree trunk and cocked one leg against the other. He folded his arms and waited.

“You’re not the same blackfeller was following me around a couple days ago. They were youngsters; not very good at it yet. But they’re learning. Gonna be fine trackers someday, the both of them. You’re all working for Sloan, though, I expect.”

Burriwi waited.

“Sloan say why he’s so interested in me?” He paused for an answer, then answered it himself. Burriwi would not have expected impatience from this man who roamed the forest in so leisurely a fashion. “Naw, he wouldn’t tell you a scrap more than you need to know. I’ll tell you. My father and his father were partners once, out seeking gold. Them and a third, McGonigan. They started out the best of friends and ended up at each other’s throats, and me in the middle. I’ve a score to settle with Sloan and he knows it. Bet he’s mentioned none of that to you.”

Burriwi considered several courses of action before choosing to speak. “That why you’re here?”

“Seeking gold, friend. You and your chums been watching me long enough to know that.”

“Don’ find gold looking at Sugarlea through a tube.”

The fossicker roared his laughter and clapped his hands, stilling the voices of forest birds for a mile around. “Here. You ever look through a telescope? I’ll show you.” Without standing up he snapped that long tube out to its full length and extended it toward Burriwi. “Point it at the treetops there and peer through the little end.”

Burriwi lurched forward. He could feel nothing hostile in this man; no spirits warned him. He accepted the tube and looked in the narrower end as instructed.

“Now sort of push it in and out—make it longer or shorter—until you can see the treetop clearly. See what it does?”

Amazing! Burriwi lifted his eye away momentarily. The man was not moving. Away out there, barely within sight, a wedge-tailed eagle perched near the top of a great gum. It took Burriwi a while to find the gum tree, and there to find the eagle. He restrained himself from reaching out to touch the bird. This was illusion. This was not reality, not even spirit. But what a fascinating illusion, to eat distance so cleverly!

“I cannot hear the gum leaves. It brings forth the sight but not the sound.” He handed the tube back, satisfied that it was harmless.
You look down upon Sugarlea, strange fossicker, but you hear nothing
. The tube posed scant danger to Sloan; no need to mention it.

“You’re right, obviously,” the bearded man went on. “Poor way to seek gold, through a tube. Aye, I have more than a passing interest in your Cole Sloan. He shares his father’s sin. You can tell him that or not, as you like.”

Sin
. He had just used one of Luke’s favorite words. Burriwi considered further. Here was an independent opinion, the point of view of a man with, apparently, no direct ties to Luke Vinson. Even more important, unlike Luke, this man was not at odds with the voices of the forest and the sea, the way Luke was. The spirits Burriwi knew did not scoff at him as they scoffed at Luke. This man surely saw things Luke could not—spiritual realities in Burriwi’s book as well as Luke’s.

Burriwi leaned against a stump near the fossicker’s arm and tucked his leg up again. “Tell me ’bout Jesus, eh?”

“About … what? Jesus?” The fellow studied Burriwi with the most perplexed expression. He chuckled. “Bet Sloan never talked about Jesus. This must be something else, aye? Jesus.” He wagged his head. “Lost contact with Jesus, friend. Sorta drifted away from Him.”

Ah! The man referred to Jesus in such a way that it was clear the fellow actually existed. That answered one question: Jesus was indeed a reality. Burriwi waited.

“Went to church when I was a tad, before I turned twelve and McGonigan made me his partner. After that—after all that—when I was roaming on my own pretty much, I tried a couple times to get religious again. Used to read the Bible a lot. Didn’t work, though. Me and Jesus, we’re not good friends; hardly even know each other anymore. But I know what I gotta do. Got that from the Bible.”

“What’s He like?”

“Well, let’s see. Son of God, but He also called himself the Son of Man. Half and half and both, all at the same time. Used to be a walking, talking man. Spirit now, though.”

“And explain to me the word ‘salvation’ mebbe, eh?”

“You should be asking a preacher that one.”

“The preacher’s a good lad, but he can’t hear a voice ’less it’s in his book. My spirits tell me he’s wrong, but they don’ seem to mind you much. You tell me mebbe.”

“Why not? Let’s see what I remember. Been a long time.”

And Burriwi sat down beside him to listen.

———

“She has a history of hard deliveries, but this one came in just under three hours. ’Course, it’s her ninth. She oughta be getting the knack of it now, eh? Heh!” The portly shipper jabbed his elbow into Cole’s ribs. “Here. Have a cigar. They’re the best. Cuban. Only person I ever asked who knew where Cuba is was that preacher, Vinson, and I’ve asked lots of people. Something about a Spanish-American war a couple years back. ‘Down south of Florida U.S.A. in the Caribbean,’ he says, and by jove that’s right! Smart bloke, Vinson.”

“Yuh.” Cole grabbed Wiggins’ hand and shook it vigorously, lest he be given another of these stinking cigars. “So glad your woman gave you another son.”

“Cole, I remember the look on your Papa’s face when you were born. He was glowing. Glowing. And I thought to myself, ‘Old Conal, he can’t be
that
happy.’ Now I know ’twas no put-on. This here’s my third son and I’m just as happy as the first one. And the girls, too. You need a family, Cole, a fine one like your papa’s. Every man does. Isn’t anything comes close to it.”

“For that I’d need a girl like Mum, and I haven’t found one yet.”

The man’s face darkened, sobered. “Nor will you so long as you’re mucking around with them coloreds and servant class. You gotta find yourself a good white girl. Maybe down in Sydney.”

“I’ll probably end up taking your advice, Wiggins, but right now I have a warehouse full of tea to move. What have you found for me?”

The man stared out his window a moment, either looking at the docks in the distance or perhaps looking at nothing at all. “Luke tells me there’s a court injunction to deal with first.”

“Dealt with. A judge in Brisbane overturned Bothner. I have legal possession now. And it’s none of Vinson’s legal concern anyway.”

“Hah!” The man wheeled around and began rifling through the papers on his cluttered desk. “Now, I investigated a couple markets. America’s out. They passed those good-tea laws and don’t let anything through the door now, practically. Mexico’s somewhat of a possibility, but it’s only the wealthy class there drinks tea at all and there’s precious few of them. But I scored big in South Africa. I’ve nearly a ton lined up with a jobber in Durban. And Argentina. Think I can get rid of the rest of it in Argentina for you.”

“You’re brilliant, Wiggins.”

“Shipping’s my job. I love it.” He winked. “Almost as much as siring heirs, that is.” Before Cole could speak he whipped out another of those big black cigars. “Here. Take two; cement the deal.”

A handshake would have been sufficient, but Cole knew when to exercise diplomacy. At least, when he finally got out of there five minutes later, he didn’t have a third one of those blasted things.

He paused a moment on the street until his eyes adjusted to the summer glare. There across the way stood Sam, as the proprietor of the dry goods store loaded a crate of something in her wagon. Crisp white blouse and black skirt, as usual. The blouse nearly glowed. And her little black beaded hat shaded all of her face except her nose—the part of her that needed it most. Would her nose with its peeling white skin and blotch of red never get used to the sun? On the other hand, it was kind of cute—it added a touch of vulnerability to her brick-wall demeanor.

Samantha exchanged inaudible pleasantries with Mr. Hamm and climbed into the wagon box. She gathered up the lines like a pro and away she went. The stereotype was true: the Irish did indeed enjoy a certain natural gift for handling horses.

He walked down the street to Gypsy and untied her from the rail. He mounted smiling as he thought about Sam’s pillow. Game girl. Another wave of smug pride rolled over him as he remembered his stroke of thoughtfulness—buying her that boat ticket. If anyone should voice doubt about his largess, let ’em ask Sam about the boat ticket.

He sent a wire to Chestley. He called on Ian Carlson but Ian was out of town. Bereft of further business, he pointed his eager little mare toward home.

Half a mile short of the mill cutoff, it occurred to him that if he had any space left in that tea shipment, he just might be able to sell some turbinado without paying additional shipping. He reined Gypsy aside and headed for the mill. Gantry would know how much yellow was immediately available. Maybe he’d have to be content with raw. No matter; any kind of sugar sold was money in his pocket.

Sam’s wagon was parked by the mill office, its horse dozing in the sun. Sam stood about by the office door looking impatient, but then that was a wild guess on Cole’s part; he was too far away to read her face. Gantry came out and paused at her elbow. She took a deliberate step back. From the rear of the wagon, he scooped up a bulky parcel of what looked like office paper. He disappeared inside with it as she pulled a smaller package off the wagon and dropped it on the stoop. Did she seem reluctant to go inside?

She was climbing up over the wheel when Gantry reappeared, grabbed her arm from behind and pulled her down off the wagon. He yanked her around and gripped her other arm. Instant inexplicable rage flared in Cole’s breast. He dug in his spurs; the mare leaped forward. He could hear Sam’s voice, strident, above the clatter of Gypsy’s full gallop.

So intent was he on stealing a kiss, Gantry almost failed to notice Cole in time. At the last moment he wheeled wide-eyed and dragged Sam around as a shield. Cole would have run him down; he couldn’t now. He veered Gypsy aside and dived for the ratbag’s throat.

Was it Gantry or Sam he slammed into? They all hit the dirt in a heap. Cole got most of the wind knocked out of him, but surely Gantry wasn’t feeling any rosier. Sloan rolled free and pulled himself to his knees facing what was left of the pile. Sam lay curled in a ball with her arms flung over her head and Gantry was struggling to—

A load of bricks drove Cole into the ground. Without thinking he tucked to protect his face and belly, then arched back and out, flailing arms and legs. The weight on his back dropped away. Cole wrenched around—Dakin! Cole was a pretty good fighter, Rafferty’s rules as well as Queensberry’s, but he had precious little chance of winning this one—not against two big, solid cane-cutters.

“Punch up!” Someone was yelling from the mill. Cole couldn’t trust any of those galahs—what if they all came piling in?

Dakin’s big brogan was flying at his face; he managed to grab it as he ducked aside. He swung it like a cricket bat, with all his weight. As Dakin flew past his ear, Cole took a wild swing at the ugly face, but he didn’t connect well at all.

Gantry was on his feet and taking that first step forward. Cole mustn’t let him get his balance; he must prevent him from squaring away. Cole charged him—he came at the mill foreman the way Gypsy had come at him moments before, full tilt.