Flight of the Eagle (34 page)

Fiona's stern expression melted with her laughter as she had a fleeting image of her son's shock. But the laughter died as she gazed gravely at Michael and said, ‘You will find him. Won't you?’

A haunted look came to her emerald eyes as she pleaded for her son's life with the one man she truly trusted.

‘I will,’ Michael answered and held her hands tightly in his own. ‘And when I do, I will bring him home to you.’

Fiona tried to smile at his confident, reassuring words. ‘Even if you bring Patrick back, my mother has poisoned him against me,’ she said in a whisper. ‘He has been told by her that I sent him away to a baby farm and had it not been for Molly saving him he would have been killed.’

For a second Michael was stunned by the revelation and stared at her in horror. This was not an act possible by Lady Enid, he thought. ‘Then I will tell him the truth,’ he said. ‘That your mother has lied to him.’

With a gratitude beyond mere words Fiona hugged Michael with all the strength in her body. ‘Dear Michael, I know why I love you so much. You are able to see the truth.’

Neither noticed Penelope enter the room until she was standing before them. Then it was Michael who saw her first and he disengaged himself from Fiona's arms.

‘Hello, Fiona,’ she greeted politely, then turned towards Michael. ‘I was expecting to see you earlier.’

Fiona's expression changed dramatically. She was caught between guilt and confusion. Although nothing had occurred between her and Michael the situation appeared compromising. She brushed down the front of her dress and greeted her cousin who returned her words with some coolness.

‘What do you mean by “expecting to see me earlier”?’ Michael asked and Penelope turned her attention to him after she received a quick hug and peck on the cheek from Fiona.

‘Your return to Sydney is known to my husband,’ she replied. ‘I am afraid the men who work for Manfred report all contacts they make with strangers and my husband was not slow to realise that the big Irishman with one eye who spoke fluent German could be none other than Michael Duffy. You must be more careful, Michael my love.’

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Michael swore. ‘What else does he know?’

As Penelope took a chair Michael could not help but admire her beauty. Age had not dimmed the aura of her sensuality, he thought. She was no less sexually appealing than when he had shared her silk sheets a decade earlier.

‘I'm afraid my husband fears you have been sent by that horrid Mister Brown to sabotage his mission,’ she answered frankly. ‘You know he has sworn to kill you if you attempt to interfere in his mission.’

‘Claim New Guinea for the Kaiser?’ Michael asked bluntly, and she smiled mysteriously before answering, ‘I never divulge what is spoken of in bed, Michael, as I hope you know and appreciate.’

Fiona glanced from Michael to Penelope.

‘You can assure Manfred,’ Michael said quietly, ‘that I have no intentions of sabotaging his mission. Nor does Mister Brown.’

‘I might believe you, Michael,’ Penelope answered with genuine sympathy, ‘but I doubt I could influence Manfred. He only knows you as a dangerous man capable of anything. Unfortunately he does not know you in other ways, as Fiona and I do.’

‘I mean it, Baroness. I am finished with working for Horace Brown and my life is my own.’

‘I said I believe you, Michael,’ Penelope reiterated. ‘But for your sake you should leave Sydney immediately so nothing will happen to you.’

‘My sake, Penelope?’ Michael asked with a grim smile. ‘Or yours?’

Penelope was quick to seize on his intimation of her relationship with Fiona and she glanced at her cousin. She had come to comfort Fiona with her body and instead had found Michael in her arms. Never before had Penelope felt as uncertain of her cousin's love until now. ‘Yours, Michael,’ she replied, as Fiona's eyes met hers.

No words needed be spoken. Fiona knew from her answer to Michael that Penelope loved her with her body and soul and Michael now stood as an outsider, denied both of them and yet loved by them both.

Michael rose and bid them a polite good evening. His last recollection of the two women who had been so important to his life was of them holding hands as he closed the door behind him.

As he walked away from the cottage Michael realised that a part of his life had been reconciled with his meeting of Fiona this day. Other than the son they mutually shared they had very little else between them. Fiona truly belonged to Penelope and for that he felt no jealousy. What he had felt in the room between the two women was real love, although he had to admit he did not fully understand it. But then, he sighed as he stepped onto the yellow sands and gazed out at the big rolling waves of the Pacific, no man would ever understand the mysterious ways of women. It was an impossibility. Finding Patrick was at least possible.

THIRTY-THREE

B
en Rosenblum slipped from the saddle and led his horse to the stockyards. He passed Jenny's grave and slowed to glance at the little pepper tree struggling to grow. It would need more water, he thought as he walked to the yards. More water and attention.

Life on the property had not been easy for Ben. He needed stockmen who knew the bush and how to find the cattle in the scrub when the time came for mustering. At least with Willie they had been able to cope with the few head he owned. But labour was in short supply; men had been reluctant to ride the lonely tracts of scrub, deep in the heart of Kalkadoon territory, so long as the fierce warriors were still an active force in the district.

Ben looped his reins around a rail and his mount shivered. Myriad bush flies had descended on her sweating flanks. She stamped her foot irritably and Ben understood her bad temper all too well. His was not much better. The loneliness of his isolation was getting to him with each day that passed on his own.

‘Whoa!’ he said softly to his horse as he ran his hand down her flank to calm her. He raised her rear leg to check her hoof as she seemed to be favouring the leg when he rode back. And it was while he was bent examining the hoof that he saw the figure, standing at the edge of the scrub line.

Cautiously Terituba watched the white man he knew as Miben. What would his reaction be? Would he shoot at him on sight as had happened when he had fled with his two wives and two sons from the Godkin Range after the dispersal? The guns of the squatters had taken the lives of one of his wives and one of his sons since that terrible day of the battle. They had been shot down whilst attempting to flee from the mounted bushmen scouring the valleys and gorges of the hills north-west of Cloncurry.

The young warrior realised the hills were no longer a sanctuary and chose to escape east and into the vast tracts of scrub. He retraced the track which had taken him into the great gathering of clans and stumbled onto the Jerusalem property of Ben Rosenblum. And now he knew his only hope to keep his remaining wife and son alive was to befriend the white man. With Miben he felt there might be hope of such friendship; he was a white man who had a good spirit, a brave man who also had children. Terituba watched but made no move and knew that the white man was making an appraisal of him.

Ben straightened casually as his hand instinctively fell over the handle of his revolver. He squinted against the glare of the late afternoon sun. He could see the Aboriginal giant standing alone and very still at the edge of the scrub; the man was familiar. He was the same warrior who had accepted his gift of flour and sugar many weeks earlier. He noted that the Kalkadoon was not carrying weapons and appeared to have sustained a wound to his head. ‘Come here!’ he called to Terituba, and beckoned with a wave of his hand. ‘Got some tucker in the hut.’

Terituba recognised the hand wave as a gesture to approach and grinned nervously as he sauntered across the dusty yard towards the bearded white man who stood with his hands on his hips. ‘Miben,’ he said when he was close. The white man broke into a beaming grin at the Kalkadoon's greeting.

Ben realised the joke was partly on himself. ‘Yeah, Miben,’ he responded, and thrust his hand out to the Kalkadoon.

The grasping of hands between the two men was a communication of spirit and Terituba knew that he had found a white man whose spirit was truly good. He thanked Ben in his own tongue for providing a sanctuary. Ben did not understand the language but understood from the grave tone that what was being spoken was something important.

Then Terituba raised his arm and Ben saw the figures of a young Aboriginal boy and young woman shyly emerge from the scrub. They were obviously hungry, he guessed from their thin appearance.

‘Looks like I've got me a cook, gardener and maybe a stockman,’ Ben chuckled as he examined the trio and led them to the hut.

Two days later a grubby and very weary young Saul Rosenblum stumbled home from his long trek from Townsville. He stood defiantly before his father who could only shake his head in wonder at how his son had weathered the perils of the arduous journey across the plains. Saul explained that he had befriended one of Kate's teamsters, and had promised his labour in return for a trip west to Cloncurry, where he was delivering supplies. The teamster had given him a job helping him with the oxen.

Needless to say, the poorly scribed letter Saul had left with his brother Jonathan would justify his sudden absence from the Cohen house. He had gambled on the fact that his uncle Solomon would understand why he had to return to Jerusalem to help his father with the property.

When Judith had read the letter she reacted by telling her husband that someone would have to ride after the teamster and fetch Saul back. But Solomon's response surprised her. ‘He is a young man now,’ he said firmly. ‘And he must find his own way in the world.’

Judith glared at her husband angrily and sniffed. ‘He is a boy and needs a good education.’

‘He will,’ her husband replied gently. ‘He is a man like his father and will learn all he needs to mustering the cattle.’

Not completely satisfied with her husband's attitude Judith turned to Jonathan who stood quietly in the room observing the exchange of views. It was fine for Saul to want to be a cattleman like his father, Jonathan thought, with just a touch of guilt. But in Townsville he would learn and one day become someone important, like a doctor or lawyer, or even a bank manager. He was pleased when his Aunt Judith took him to her bosom and swore that he would be given the best education the Cohens could afford.

Ben Rosenblum did not know how he should react to the sudden reappearance of his son in his life. The boy stood before him without any sign of remorse for his act of disobedience.

‘I ought to take the stockwhip to you,’ he growled.

‘Do that, Dad,’ Saul replied. ‘But don't send me away again.’

For a brief moment they glared at each other until the glare softened in Ben's eyes to be replaced with a moistness he did not want his son to see. ‘Go and get something to eat,’ he said as he turned away to stomp across the dusty yard. ‘Terituba's missus will look after you.’

He stopped halfway across the yard and turned back to his son who had remained watching his father's back as if expecting either a whipping or a kind word from the gruff man he loved so much. ‘It's good to have you back, son,’ Ben added. ‘But you're going to have to work hard if your decision is to be a cattleman and not get a good education in Townsville with your brother and sister.’

Saul wanted to run to his father and hug him with the love he felt for the tall man but knew that would be an admission of childish behaviour. Instead he let his heart skip a beat as he turned away to go to the bark hut where he would meet Terituba's wife and son.

As the days followed Saul found a friend in Terituba's son. Divided by language and race they soon bridged the gulf with their mutual love of the bush. And Terituba and his son were as good as any teachers, in terms of all that the boy needed to learn in order to live in a land which was hostile to Europeans from across the sea.

Ben would watch the two boys chattering happily together in a mix of English and Kalkadoon as they squatted in the shade of the trees near the hut after they had returned from roaming the bush in search of small game for the cooking fire. ‘Maybe the young fella did the right thing in coming back,’ he muttered to himself with a shake of his head. ‘But I still have to make sure he can read and write proper.’ To ensure that happened Ben realised that he would have to teach him the rudimentary rules of arithmetic and the alphabet. Saul needed more than a knowledge of the bush if he were one day to take control of Jerusalem Station.

THIRTY-FOUR

T
he rain fell with a steady, drumming beat on the tin roof of the ramshackle eating house tucked into a corner of Sydney's Chinese quarter. Men with plaited pigtails sat around cramped tables playing mah-jong. Bamboo and ivory tiles clicked with the sound of twittering sparrows as they were turned and tossed on the tables. Other patrons of the eating house held bowls close to their mouths and tucked into steaming savoury noodles with chopsticks, occasionally glancing with curiosity at the two European barbarians who sat at a table tucked in the corner. Much to the surprise of the proprietor, a thick-set Fukien Chinese whose pale skin glistened with sweat from the heat of the tiny kitchen, the older of the two had ordered in fluent Chinese. The Chinaman's hostile expression changed immediately and he hurried away to prepare his best noodles for them.

When the noodles were placed before them Horace ate slowly but Michael ate with a ravenous appetite. It had been a long time since he had eaten Chinese food.

When Michael finished his third bowl of noodles, subtly flavoured with smoked red pork and vegetables, he wiped his mouth with the cuff of his shirt and sat back to ruminate on the pleasures of food. ‘More, old chap?’ Horace asked, but Michael shook his head. ‘Enough for now,’ he replied. ‘Maybe later.’

Horace placed his bowl on the table and sighed contentedly. ‘One misses the delights of Fukien cooking,’ he commented, and wiped his mouth with a clean handkerchief. Napkins were not an item in the eating house. ‘I could die happy at a Chinese banquet.’