The Gallant (51 page)

“That’s not likely, Martha.”

“I could find out for you,” Martha offered. “I could write to

the Hobart

Chronicle. I

wouldn’t need to give nothin’ away, only-was “Only claim the reward?” Michael finished for her, and was shamed by the vehemence of her denial.

“It don’t say nothin’ about apprehendin’ you, does it?” she pointed out coldly. “An’ it don’t say as you’re an absconder.”

“No-but I am, Martha. Between you and me, that’s what I am, and that’s why I’ll have to move on.

I’d get you into trouble if I stayed and they found me here.”

Tommy had listened to their conversation with his usual blank imcomprehension, but the words “move on”

penetrated the mists that shrouded his brain, andwitha cry like some young animal in pain, he hurled his small, ungainly body into Michael’s arms.

“No! Don’t move on, Michael! I want you should stay.”

Touched by the boy’s unexpected display of emotion, Michael held him, rocking him to and fro as he would have rocked a baby. “I cannot stay, Tommy lad,” he said gently. “I wish I could, but it’s not possible.”

“Then take me with you,” Tommy pleaded. “I’d be no trouble. I’d work for you, like we worked here.”

“Your mother needs you here, Tom. And she will need you all the more when I’m gone. This farm has to have a man to work it, you know.”

“I ain’t a man,” the boy protested sullenly. “An’ Ma says I never will be.

Let me come with you-you’re goin’ to the gold diggin’s, ain’t you?”

It took all Michael’s powers of persuasion to convince the boy, but finally and reluctantly he shambled off to his bed, and Martha said, her tone resentful, “Taken to you, hasn’t he? I’d have boxed his ears for him, if he’d played up like that with me.” Then she smiled, the resentment vanishing.

“We’ll miss you, Michael-the pair of us’ll miss you, an’ no mistake. But …

when will you go? ha the mornin’?”

“Yes, in the morning. And I’ll be sorry to go.”

“Maybe you’ll come back?” Martha suggested.

“Maybe.” But he would not, Michael knew. Not with an er/while police inspector in Urquhart Falls. He added, conscious of how much the reward would mean to her, “Give me a

William Stuart Long

good head start and then write to the Chronicle.

You can tell them I was here, but not where I’ve gone.

And . . dis8He hesitated. “And you can tell them my real name, because that will be proof enough for you to claim the reward. It’s Cadogan. I don’t doubt they will have found that out by now.”

He left the farm before either Tommy or his mother was up and, conscious of a genuine feeling of sadness, set off again northward. The weather, although cold, held for the first two days, but as he climbed higher into the hills, dark clouds gathered with the promise of rain or, he thought, looking skyward, possibly snow.

The promise was fulfilled an hour before nightfall, and a blizzard descended, blotting out the landscape and chilling him to the bone. The horses were tired, and Michael was considering halting to make camp when a distant glimmer of light decided him to press on.

An isolated inn came into view a short while later, and thankfully he put both horses under cover in the inn stable, surprised to find that seven or eight other animals were occupying the stalls and boxes. A youthful hostler was at work, bedding them down, and leaving his own two in the lad’s charge, Michael strode across the yard to the inn. The taproom was crowded; a group of bearded men, dressed in the rough moleskins of gold diggers, were gathered round the bar, clearly in high spirits, drinking fairly heavily and toasting each other uproariously.

They were paying in gold dust, tipping it out on the bar counter with lavish hands, and the landlord and his wife, busily serving them, were beaming their pleasure at what they both evidently regarded as a windfall.

Diggers who must have made a big strike, Michael decided, eyeing them curiously. He made no attempt to join them but took a seat at a table on the far side of the room and waited, without impatience, for the arrival of the modest meal for which he had asked.

It came, after some delay, served by a lad in an apron that was several sizes too large for him, and proved to be tough mutton that had been greatly overcooked. Hardly up to Martha Higgins’s standard, Michael thought regretfully, but he was hungry and the potatoes served with the scraggy meat were plentiful, and the gravy was thick and rich. He ate slowly, washing the food down with a glass of home-brewed ale, and listened idly to the diggers’

chatter, hoping to pick up a hint as to the locality in which they had made their strike. But for all their seemingly careless merriment, the men gave no hint.

They were well into their cups, staggering unsteadily about the dimly lit taproom, laughing and joking among themselves, and paying the landlord’s wife extravagant compliments-which her appearance scarcely merited, but which she accepted with arch enjoyment, while keeping her distance behind the bar.

And then, without warning, the door opened and two police troopers came in, shaking the snow from their outer garments and cursing freely at the weather. The diggers lapsed into silence, eyeing them askance, and in the sudden hush the newcomers’ voices carried across the room.

“Rum, Davie, for the Lord’s sake!” Michael heard one of them demand. “It’s as black as pitch outside, and the bloody snow’s coming down so thick you can’t see your hand in front of your face! We damned near rode past here without seeing your lights.”

“It’s no night to be out,” the landlord observed sympathetically. “What brings you out, anyway?”

Michael noticed that he was nervous, glancing anxiously across at the oddly subdued group of diggers as he poured the troopers’ rum.

“A bloody holdup, of course,” the trooper returned bitterly. “The shipment from River Fork.

The whole flaming lot’s gone and two of our boys gunned down.” He gulped his drink and went into graphic detail. “Joe Hardy was hit in the stomach, and I don’t reckon he’ll last the night, the poor old sod. And young Lomax took two slugs in the leg. They were too many for “em-eight or ten, Lomax said-skulking in ambush at the bottom of Snake Gully, and they opened up with rifles. Hit the team leaders and brought the wheel horses down, upsetting the wagon.

It was a bleeding shambles. Old Joe never had a chance, and the goddamned diggers, who should have backed him up, why, they lit out and left ‘em to it, Lomax said.”

He turned to glare at the moleskin-clad men on the far side of the room. “It’s

their

flaming gold! Up to them to defend the William Stuart Long

blasted shipment, wasn’t it? Hey, you over there!”

He addressed the diggers. “You from River Fork, eh?”

“River Fork?” There had been a perceptible pause before one of the men answered the aggressively phrased question. “Naw, we ain’t from there, trooper.”

“Is that so?” The trooper had drawn his pistol from its holster, and now he advanced into the center of the room, coming under the beam of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling. In its light, his face was clearly revealed, and Michael stared at him in shocked disbelief, recognizing him instantly as one of Commandant Price’s overseers. A savage brute of a man, he had been known to the Norfolk Island convicts as “Flogger” Smith, an informer and a toady of Price’s who was universally hated and feared.

Recognition was mutual. Smith turned from the group of diggers to level his pistol at Michael’s chest, a slow smile spreading across his leathery face.

“Ho, ho! Who have we here, for Christ’s sake?

Big Michael-Big bloody Michael, who wouldn’t bow the knee to Commandant Price! And serving life, too-which makes him an absconder in my book! Aye, and a scurvy gold robber to boot!

Lend me a hand, Tom Mullan, and we’ll take the rogue in!”

His summons brought his comrade to his feet, startled. But Trooper Mullan moved too slowly; one of the diggers put out a foot and sent him sprawling headlong, and another grabbed Michael’s arm and hustled him to the door. A shot rang out as they reached it, and the other men came spilling out after them, shouting to one another in slurred, excited voices.

Michael heard one of them yell to the landlord that he had better keep his mouth shut if he knew what was good for him, and then he found himself propelled roughly onto the back of a tethered horse. He seized its reins and galloped off in their midst, into the driving snow. The cold was intense, and apart from a few remarks concerning the route they wanted to take, no one spoke. They rode hard for what Michael estimated to be about an hour and then pulled up outside another isolated tavern. Here they dismounted, and as one of them took the horse he had been riding, he realized with a faint shock that the ani mal was a troop horse-no doubt the property of one of the policemen.

“Come on in, Big Michael,” one of his rescuers invited. “We’ll be safe an” warm here, an’ we can do the honors. My name’s Billy, and-was His bearded face split into a grin.

“I know who

you

are well enough. There ain’t many as served time under that foul swine Price on Norfolk Island that don’t remember your name.

An’

what you did!”

He ushered Michael inside a primitive building-a long, low hut constructed of split logs andwitha shingle roof-and, over the drinks that a man in a nightshirt sleepily served them, formally introduced himself and his companions.

“I’m known as Billy Lawless, which ain’t my real name, an’ these are my boys.” He pointed to them, grinning as he explained the nicknames they went under. “Tich Knight, the little feller … Marty Low, who gets called Slow most of the time, “cos he’s anything but. And Ginger Masters-you can see why, can’t you? Chalky White … Boomer O’Malley, the loudest voice you’ll ever hear .

. . and Slugger McFee, who used to be a fist fighter. And this here’s Big Michael Wexford, boys. I had the privilege of doing time with him on Norfolk Island, and take my word for it, he’s all right.” He raised his glass. “May John bloody Price rot in ‘Cause that’s where he’s gone, I’d stake my oath! They did for him at Pentridge Gaol, did you know that, Big Michael?”

“Yes, I saw it in the newspaper.” Michael drained his glass, feeling the liquor course through his chilled body. “I’m grateful to you, Lawless—

to all of you, for getting me out of a tight corner. It was odd, though-I supposed you were diggers who had made a rich strike.”

The man known as Boomer roared with laughter.

“And so we had! A very rich strike. But there’s easier ways than digging gold out of the ground, mister-take my word for it. F’instance, holding up a shipment from the mines.” The others joined in his laughter.

Lawless waited until the merriment died down and then said to Michael, “You would be welcome to join us, Big Michael, if you’ve nothing else in mind.

You’re on the run, ain’t you?”

“Yes,” Michael admitted, “that’s so.” A spirit of bravado

William Stuart Long

filled him; what, he asked himself, had he to lose? These were holdup men, bushrangers, it was true, but what was he? A convict, a lifer, and a fugitive from justice, for whom it would be the rope if he were caught. As an alternative to toiling in the goldfields at the worst time of the year, joining these cheerful, happy-go-lucky men had considerable appeal.

He hesitated for a moment and then held out his hand.

“I’ll come along.”

“Good man!” Billy Lawless grinned, wringing Michael’s proffered hand. “We’re going south for a spell-it’s become a mite too hot for us hereabouts. But we’ve a prospect about fifty miles or so from here that we intend to look into. I’ll tell you about it when we’re on our way. Right now, I reckon we could all do with a few hours” sleep. We’ll make tracks around noon tomorrow, if the coast’s clear. And-we share and share alike, Michael. The risks and the profits.

That suit you?”

“Yes, that will suit me well.” Somewhat to his own surprise, Michael realized that he felt relaxed and even strangely at ease. With these men, he told himself, he would not have to pretend or keep a guard on his tongue. And they were not vicious killers like Haines and Josh; they were his kind, the kind he had become. Even with Luke Murphy he had had to exercise caution, take care what he said, for Luke’s sake as much as for his own. At Bundilly, with the Broomes, he had been ill at ease, and at Martha Higgins’s small farm there had been underlying anxiety, despite the trust she and the boy Tommy had shown in him. True, Billy Lawless’s gang would have the police hot on their trail after the holdup of the gold convoy, but-

“We only aimed to wing those troopers,” Lawless volunteered, as if he had read Michael’s thoughts. “But the old feller came at us, set on shooting it out, and it was him or us. But mostly we ain’t in favor of violence, and I reckon we should keep it that way … you agree?”

“I agree, Billy.”

“We’ll drink to that,” Billy Lawless said.

“And then get our heads down. Fill up, boys!”

THE GALLANT351

For what remained of the night, Michael slept dreamlessly and well. Just before noon, they set off on their way south, Lawless riding at Michael’s side to explain, at some length, the prospect they intended to look into.

Kitty was in Launceston-one of half a dozen false trails she and Johnny had followed-when the letter she had been waiting and praying for finally arrived from Patrick, and she broke the seal on it with trembling fingers.

Johnny, who had collected it from the Chronicle’s

local office, to which Dominic Hayes had forwarded it, watched her with concern as she read, the color draining from her cheeks.

When she did not speak, he asked anxiously, “Well, is there definite news at

last? Has Pat found your brother Michael?”

For answer, Kitty passed him the letter and a printed cutting that had been enclosed with it.

“See for yourself,” she invited tonelessly “But read Pat’s letter first. The item from the Melbourne Herald

is … is speculation. It may not be Michael they are referring to, I-please God it is not!”